We took my mom to Tioman as a chance to see some of the local culture and wildlife. We had Malay food by the truckfull and I had to practically fight off the bats, monitor lizards, geckos and other little guys from trying to eat my Roti Cannai. Not to mention the local cats, who seemed to conveniently wake up when food was around. (No one gets my Roti...)

For our first adventure, Sherrell and I decided we'd try to cross to the other side of the island and go to Juara Bay. Originally we wanted to climb to the peak, but the locals told us that just getting through the thick jungle to get to the base would take about 4-5 hours and the whole trip would take about 2 days. The trek to Juara would only be about 8 hours round trip. Unfortunately though, we got a late start, and decided to just aim for the top of the ridge and see how much time we had left.

On the way, we saw some amazing trees. This part of the jungle had never been logged and had original rainforest trees. They were massive. In fact, there was one tree that had grown so large that it overtook a boulder and continued to grow upwards.

In this photo, I was trying to find a short cut past this massive tree. Sherrell waited until I got to the top of the rock before pointing out that someone had built some stairs around it. Funny how the only photos we have of me is when I'm doing something stupid....

Juara Bay escaped us that day. We hiked for about 3 hours to the top of the ridge (about 1/2 to Juara) and decided to call it quits. There was a nice cool fresh water spring that we hopped around in to cool off and we spent the next hour climbing back down to the beach where I could order up a huge plate of Aubergine Sambal! (Eggplant grilled with a very spicy sauce...yum. "I could eat a plate twice!")

We also saw a really strange lizard roaming around in the rocks. Does anyone know what this is? Some kind of Salamandar?

Of course we did some diving. In fact I think we were part fish by the time this trip was over. My mom alone set the world's record for amount of time spent snorkeling. Even if no one could understand her while she was talking through the snorkel.

Sherrell and I found a dive shop that took us to two little islands for diving and some snorkeling. After about 2 hours of trying to sort out which boat they were going to take us in, we finally got underway. Unfortunately they put us in the slow bum-boat so we couldn't go all the way out to tiger reef to see the sharks. But the ride was relaxing and the scenery was great.

The next day we did some snorkeling before rushing to catch our boat back to Singapore. I swam across the bay (Monkey Bay) and when I got to the other side there was a large turtle swimming on the bottom. I was so excited that I yelled for the boat and waved for them to come over, but they were too far away to hear me. I tried to follow the turtle for several minutes, but after one of my shouting fits, I looked back down and he had swum off. I searched all around but I couldn't find the big guy. Soon everyone showed up in the boat, but it was too late for them to see it. Real bummer.

Anyway we had a good time seeing the fish and swimming around. Here's a great shot of Sherrell swimming in aqua blue water.

Down the beach from us, some of the Singaporeans were let loose on the water. But they have a different style about swimming and snorkeling than most.

We all had a good time on this little island. I ate Roti's until I was going to burst; Mom snorkeled until she started to grow gills; and Sherrell searched out all the lizards and cool birds for me to photograph.

All good things must end, so they piled our white butts on the boat and shipped us back to the main dock to catch our boat. But not before I got one hell of a classy family portrait.