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September 13, 2004

Our getaway weekend

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After our getaway weekend we made one clear decision - to throw away (or better burn) our "independant traveler's Bible" aka LP aka Lonely Planet book (more about it later). This dreamy fog in Malaysia on the way from Johor Bahru to Mersing is actually smoke from the forest fire. Malaysians don't seem to be fuzzy about the way they handle their nature. It felt that people are still fighting the nature there, protecting may come later, when a lot more is destroyed...

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For our short getaway (2 nights, 3 days), we decided to go to Tioman island that is one of the closest and most popular beach destinations for hard working Leijonakaupungilaiser. We relied on developed infrastructure, buses and boats and hoped our trip would be easy, because there's so many people traveling that way every weekend. Oh how mistaken we were - we spent 6 hours for the bus and the boat trip only to get to the island (it reminded of our wekend trips to Kristiinakaupunki... where most of the time we were just driving...)

rockybeach.gifComing back to burning the LP book - after reading it we decided to go to one of the beaches, called ABC. The book gives "unbiased" info about places to go and places to be avoided for backpackers all around the world. It said that there quite many budget places to stay, but forgot to mention that the beach is completely rocky. When we were there, there were couple of fisherman boats close to the beach pooring come kind of crap to the water. Everything was so run down that you could just sit down and cry in there.

It's virtually impossible to walk from place to place in Tioman, because most of the island is huge rocky hills (reaching 1038m) covered with forest. The villagers (and tourists) travel around by boats and later in the afternoon you're completely at the mercy of local fishermen - how much will they charge for taking you somewhere else and if they will take you anywhere.. After dragging our heavy bags for few hours we ended up paying really a lot for a short ride and arrived to Salang village. This doesn't end here.. The resort was full, there weren't many places to sleep left...

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After 12 hours from leaving Leijonakaupunki we had a (overpriced) place to stay and finally could relax. This flag above Kaitsu's head is not American (although if you ask me, it looks very much like it), but Malaysian. Instead of stars, there's half a moon and one star in the blue rectangle.

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I liked the place, because there was such a mixture of people of all kinds of races from all kinds of places. The nice thing was that you couldn't tell right away who's the tourist and who's working there (in many other places on earth its very straightforward - the plumpy westerners are on holiday and everybody else just serving them..) There were all kinds of of Leijonakaupunkilaiset, Indian, Malaysian and, of course, western people on holiday (and at work)...

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Later at night we were just sitting on the beach, looking at the stars, I think we saw a Scorpion in the sky (don't know for sure, but we both agreed that one of the stars constelations looks very much like a scorpion) and 1 shooting star. It was too late to come up with a wish...

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Crossing a little bridge over a canal to our cottage we saw something swimming in the dark and dirty water. It was a lizard!!! About 1.5m long!! Certainly a bit like a crocodile!!! We thought there's 1 lizard that is always swimming towards the same direction, always when you cross the bridge, but later we saw that there's at least some 7-10 of them living in the canal!!! And they get out of the water too!!! We saw one (a bit smaller) in the cottage owner's yard! I wonder, if these lizards are a little bit bloodthirsty, they may easily bite of your thumb, or even a whole hand if they only want to!!!

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Next day we went diving and saw, sure, lots of fish and beautiful coral, couple of turtles, at the end I got really cold (of course, water was just +29C degrees!!!) It was nice to be under water again and I hope we'll do more of that soon. After a break it is always a bit awkward to have all the equipment on, to remember how to breath, how to sink and how to stay at the same level.

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Later in the afternoon we decided to walk a little bit to the jungle to the next uninhabited beach. After climbing for 30min a steep path straight up the hill, I almost got a heart attack and couldn't understand how it is possible that the path is still leading up. After walking downwards for another 20min, we turned back, although we didn't reach the beach. The night was falling and the bats were already hunting for Kaitsu.. Trecking in tropics is something I still need to get used to. It is a sweatty, scratchy (there's superfast and supersilent moskitos) and sticky business..

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The next day we had to leave. That left us wondering whether it is a smart idea at all to travel that far to have one full day off... The boat trip was really bumpy. The sea was rough, the people were puking all around us, one muslim woman was praying the whole trip and through the windows it looked as if we were in a submarine rather than on a boat..

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It was a really long and tiring trip. Coming back to Leijonakaupunki felt so good - like coming home! Everything was familiar and everything worked perfectly, the roads were clean and the island seemed to be full of trees and nature.. It was great, to have this feeling of coming home... We came home tired... :)

Posted by gkligyte at September 13, 2004 09:05 PM
Comments

I am soooooo very jealous of you when I see those beautiful pictures.

be well.
we miss you in the choir.
yonca.

Posted by: Yonca on September 15, 2004 06:05 PM

Hello, Yonca!

Well, I'm sooooo envious that you can go to the choir! :) Miss you!

Singapore is a truly nice location (even nicer ones are around here), the only problem is that Kaj has to go to work (having a night shift on Friday again...) and I need to find some meaningful ocupation too. So, although eternal holiday is close, its still not quite within our reach... :)

Posted by: Giedre on September 16, 2004 08:32 AM
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