The drive from KL to Mersing in the night will always prove to be one of my most memorable. It was the first time I’d driven in such a late hour and in such ’spooky’ roads - once off the PLUS highway the drive to Mersing town is through plantations covered in thick mists and nocturnal animals in a hive of activity.
Having reached at the unearthly hour of 3am and seeing as the first boat was at 7am my friends and I checked into an el cheapo motel for the few hours of rest.
At 7:30am off we were on one of those diesel burning ferries which to my mind costs and arm and a leg - its RM40 one way (but this was in Sept 05- with fuel price hikes it could be more now)
Our stop was Air Batu and the chalet we’d picked was aptly called ABC - talk about simple! Twin sharing for 3D2N was at RM250 for the room which actually came with 1 double and 1 single - which meant we could really have 3 quite comfortably in the room. A mini fridge, some coffe making facilities, nice spacious bathroom with YES hot shower - not something you get very often on islands and at this price. ABC has a decent enough ’cafe’ albeit limited menu - if you are vegetarian - you’ll end up eating alot of french fries and bake beans (warn the roomies though!!)
I was lucky my chalet faced teh beach - a word of caution the beach here in ABC is rocky so you have to for quite far out before you can horse around in the water. You can rent snorkel and flippers and do a bit of snorkelling here - although what I noticed was a lot of fish in large schools over by the jetty.
What we did - my friends are scuba divers so they had their plan pretty laid out, me I had to be the baby and snorkel on my own whilst they were besotted by the beauty 20m below.
If you are into the express scuba diving - you can sign up with B&J for the Discovery program and in 4 days take your few of many dives. I was somewhat on a budget and had not really come with the intention to express scuba - still in the planning to go through a proper course - since I am not a strong swimmer.
The trek we did over to Salang - where most of the activities plus Duty Free shopping is available took about 35 mins one way - a bit of an Up and Down trek!... but the shopping and the seafood was excellent!!! And the snorkelling at Malang Rock is amazing - I can’t wait to dive there as the picture the others took were mesmerising.
If you’ve got the time and in Malaysia March to Sept - give Tioman a go. Its sunny warm happy moment and memories kinda a place and you won’t leave with any regrets other than having to leave at all. All in all Petrol+toll+Ferry return+Chalet if you’re on your own would come up to about RM500 for 3D2N - but if you’re sharing the costs its not too bad. Meals depend on where and what you eat.
Tioman is a definite I’m Going Back Again destination