Pulua Tioman, Malaysia part one

I went away for my first weekend out of Singapore which was much needed after 2 and a half months of being here!  Singapore is a very small country, and if you want to get away for the weekend you are leaving the country.  We decided to head to an island off of the east coast of Malaysia.  Since none of us could leave till Friday night after work, we chose Tioman since it is not too far to get to.  We left very early Saturday morning for a 3 hour bus ride to Mersing, Malaysia which is along the east coast.  Then took a one and a half hour ferry ride to the island of Tioman, followed by a 20 minute car ride across the island to our resort.  The thing about leaving Singapore is that you are leaving the country and have to go through immigration and customs...I didn't even think about this and was not a big fan of the long lines to go through immigration.  We just wanted to get to our island of paradise since we only had Saturday and Sunday morning!!  Aside from immigration, the bus and ferry ride flew by.  We were at our resort by 2pm which wasn't too bad. :)

We all wanted a nice quiet weekend away from Sing city, so we chose the quietest beach on the island, Juaru Beach.  There really was no one else on the beach both days except a few random travelers walking along the beach.  Once we arrived to our resort, we headed to the cafe right by our little hut for some food.  Everything in Malaysia is SO cheap :)  The food was excellent and the fresh squeezed pineapple juice was delicious.  Then we headed straight for the beach and rented some snorkeling gear.  I have never snorkeled in my life before and was really nervous.  I spent my childhood summers at the local pools so I know how to swim pretty good, but being out in the ocean is a completely different story.  I don't like being far out in the water without a boat or something to grab onto if I get tired.  My friends reassured me I would be just fine with the fins and floating out in the sea water.  We hadn't gotten very far out in the water where we couldn't touch and I started freaking out.  Breathing through the scuba mask was brand new to me and I felt like I couldn't breathe.  I wasn't used to the fins on my feet and felt like they would only weigh me down.  I was wondering how the heck I could tread water and swim out here for a long time.  I was panicking and had to go back and get a life vest or I wasn't going to enjoy this at all.

Once I got a life vest on and got rid of the fins, I swam back out and found my friends.  I made myself calm down and learn how to breathe through the snorkel mask.  Once I did this, I started swimming around with the snorkel mask on and I started to see some fish!  There was beautiful coral reef on the bottom and I started to see different types of fish.  I don't know names of fish but I saw really bright blue, small fish.  I saw yellow and black (or blue?) striped fish.  I also saw leopard spotted fish, sea cucumbers, and many schools of tiny silver fish.  Once I got the hang of snorkeling, it was one of the most calming and coolest things I've ever done.  It was so peaceful floating around looking and the beauty of the sea :)  I can't wait to do some more snorkeling around SE Asia now that I know what works best for me.

Snorkeling was followed by some beach relaxing and shell collecting.  We really worked up an appetite from snorkeling and went back to the cafe for dinner and Tigers (of course....) :)  For dinner, I munched on squid fries which is just another name for calamari.  We found out from the waiter that there was one bar down the beach.  The bar was small but was built really cool; it was two floors with the bar being upstairs, and the whole bar was made up of logs.  There was a very small crowd there, so we just relaxed in the lounge chairs upstairs with some cocktails (did i mention super cheap?!) listening to the ocean and played with the little kittens walking around the bar. :)  Later on some locals were twirling around ropes with fire on the ends (I got some cool pics of this, but you will have to check out facebook for these :-P).  We walked down by the water to go back to our resort and the view of the stars were amazing!!  I have never seen so many stars in my life... We just stood out there for awhile and looked up at the stars.  It was beautiful, heavenly, breathtaking, there-are-no-words-to-describe amazing! :)  PURE BLISS...  It was pure unadulterated joy in that moment.

Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in your life that it took your breath away? :)