Panuba Inn Resort Pulau Tioman

... get in to ....yet....everynight when we came back from dinner there he was.....little sod! The only way he could have come in would be to crawl under the front door, across the room, under the bathroom door and sit there waiting for us to just throw him out again!!! His final magic act was to appear from inside Gary's boot as he was about to put them on this morning.

As I said before we had a family of monkeys that came the same time every evening ...

... guys!). Rachael ate:
a prawn
a mouthfull of tom yam soup
thai green curry
and some 'reduced spice' courses kindly amended by the chef for Rachael's delicate palate.

The staff here were amazing, best service we've ever had. Breakfast in
bed/dinner to our room all anticipated before we had asked for it!
clever peeps!

We also took the boat out to a private beach where the hotel set up ...

... they have chefs but twice as expensive and pretty isolated. The nicest village is Salang, the last stop of the boat all the way to the north of the Tioman Island. Lots of chalets to rent, and the cheapest food on the island. The only drawback is that you are quite isolated, there are no roads, only jungle trekking to the nearest village, and that takes about 3 hours and it is exhausting. The only way to get away is by boat and that is pretty expensive ...

... crescent moon.

For 16 days I'd comforted myself in the beautiful arms of Tioman. It's welcoming skies, warm waters and charming people. It's watchful guardian peaks and it's delicate nurturing sands had held me close when I needed it. The sun shone brighter and the sea sparkled endlessly, there was beauty and something else in the air that day. And she made me smile when I didn't think it possible.

Terimah Kasih Tioman xx

... on this one it wasn't too bad and we actually ended up treating ourselves everyday with delicious milkshakes, fruitshakes and freshly BBQ fish!!! One night I had Baracuda which was just delicious!!!

At the moment the internet isn't great for uploading pics....so I've just put a few...hopefully I'll be able to catch up at some point.

Ok...that's it for now....Singapore coming soon!!!!

... Vincent, the father's case), was just about ok, before it was time to enjoy the delights of the speedboat once more. Two more snnrkelling opportunities, this time on Renggis Island and the Marine Park, enabled more fish and coral to be seen, before we made our way back to Paya Beach. Another fantastic day, and one that appears to have re-ignited an interest in snorkelling and scuba diving for Sara.

... do I really look that old and infirm? (Rhetorical). This helpfulness and consideration was typical of what we had experienced in Malaysia – little did we know that we would be able to repay this in some small way on the return coach trip. (Yes this is being written in retrospect).
Having secured our Bluewater Ferry tickets, we were then subjected to a rather bizarre series of examples of officaldom, reminiscent of Cambodian immigration. Firstly you have to ...

... a
cuttlefish and watched it change colour which was also amazing. It is
so hard to describe what it is like down there, it is so peaceful and
all of the fish are so colourful and have their own behaviours and
characteristics. It is truly amazing. After our dive we got the boat
back to Salang where we washed all of our gear and packed it away. We
then went back to the dive shop and filled out our log books and
recieved our certification. Woo hoo ...

... Well it looks like we are staying longer because
instead of leaving tomorrow as planned we start our advanced course
on wednesday and thursday so will leave on saturday probably. Our
advanced course consists of a navigation course, a deep dive course
and 3 other ones that we get to choose. We chose to do the Peak
performance bouyancy dive where we get to fine tune our bouyancy
which i think is essential and apparently it is a ...