Weekend trip

Everything is booked for my first weekend out of Singapore!  We are going on an overnight trip to a beach in Malaysia called Tioman this Saturday.  http://wikitravel.org/en/Tioman#b  There is a group of four girls going; my German roommate, my German friend, and my American friend from Philly!  We will leave early Saturday morning at 6:30 am via bus for a 3 hour bus ride to the east coast of Malaysia.  Then we will take a speed boat or ferry over to the west side of island.  After that we have a car transport that will take us to our resort on the east side of the island.  If everything is on time, I think we should be at the island by noon! :)  Here is a description of where I will be going:

Juara

The local village is spread back from the little track which follows the line of the sea. People live all over the place normally in simple huts. The tourist huts and accommodation is within 20 m of high water mark.

Juara is a very quiet beach at the east coast especially in the off season, when almost nobody is there. There are three rivers coming from the mountains, delivering cold freshwater to the beach, a chilling alternative to swimming in the sea. A path leads to waterfalls in the jungle, which is nice for a swim and climb over the large rocks. To reach the waterfalls, just follow a marked path for about 30 min. The path starts at the south beach, next to the turtle breeding farm. Opposite of the great rocks, which lie on the beach. The path is marked by the bottoms of cans, nailed to the trees and painted yellow and red. At the beginning of the path there are three such signs at a tree. If you walk along the only concrete road towards south to the turtle breeding farm, you can not miss it.

The place itself is divided into two beaches that are separated by a small hill, which is said to be the "origin" of Tioman. Some locals say: "you have not been on Tioman, if you did not stand on these rocks".

• The beach more towards the north where the jetty has very nice sand but with some dead coral in the shallow water. Swimming is OK, but walking in the water can be painful. At both ends of this beach is the mouth of one of the rivers.

• The beach more towards the south is even quieter. The sand again is very nice and there are no obstacles in the water. At the south end of this beach the last of the three rivers meets the sea.

A basin of the waterfalls near Juara

• At the north beach there is a turtle hatchery.