Hi, everyone! I have spent the last six nights on Tioman Island in Malaysia. Every day, I’ve been walking through the jungle admiring wildlife and having underwater adventures in the sea. It has been lovely!

Batu Caves

After Taman Negara (which, again, feels like a million years ago), I took the bus to Kuala Lumpur for a few final nights. While there, I got some new Rx sunglasses – yay! My transitions lenses had really been failing me lately with the bright sun, so I decided it was time to cough up for a new pair of sunnies. Done.

I walked around town some – back to the Petronas towers, to a nearby bridge, etc. If you can’t tell, I’m slightly obsessed with the Merdeka building.

One of the last things I wanted to do in Kuala Lumpur was visit the Batu Caves. I wasn’t sure I would go but after confirming with Jasper, it seemed like a “must”. It ended up being worth it. Just an hour by train, I was on the fringes of the city and able to visit a Hindu temple in a cave. I mistakenly went to the Sri Ramayana Cave first which was fine but felt a little kitschy.

Lots of sculptures and Hindi lore there, though! And very lit-up and… kinda camp, to be honest.

Little did I know, the ACTUAL cave temple I was meant to go to was free to visit.

There were SO many pigeons at the base of the stairs leading up to the temple lol.

After walking up many multi-colored steps, I made it to the temple. It was really cool.

Looking up, you could see various holes in the cave walls. But the temple was used for actual worship. There was a devotee who was pouring what looked like flavored milk over the statues, then cleansing them with water, then pouring a different colored liquid over the statue, then water, etc. It was cool to watch.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a temple within a cave before. Maybe!

After Batu Caves, I returned to the city.

Kuala Lumpur to Tioman Island

My hostel was not really the best. It was… in the middle of a parking garage? Like there were walls and rooms and a bathroom… but it was in the middle of a parking garage basically (photo of outside the hostel is middle picture below). Weirdest thing ever. On my final night, a Syrian guy was talking to me and after some back and forth/translating with GoogleTranslate, he basically was asking me for $150 because he couldn’t afford accommodation for him and his son the next day. I felt bad but like… c’mon, dude. I don’t know what to do for you.

Early the next morning, I took a Grab to the bus station to begin my journey to Tioman Island. It was sort of a long day. My bus was at 5am so I had an early rise… bus was 5 hours, then had another hour to kill before a 1.5hr ferry ride. WELL it wasn’t until I had arrived in Mersing (before the ferry), I discovered that the ferry only stops at one main town – Tekek. This is a little annoying because it stops multiple jetties on the way back to Mersing. I looked it up and it’s sort of a way to force tourists into taking local transportation/feeding into the island economy, etc. Alright, no problem.

When I’d arrived in Paya, I had to either take another ferry to Paya, or “walk” about an hour and a half. Beforehand, I was trying to weigh my options. I was carrying my luggage and figured the ferry was relatively cheap and I wasn’t sure what the trek would be like – so I was deciding on the ferry. Well, I found out that my brain had other plans for me. Once I disembarked the ferry, I had JUST missed a water taxi going to Paya. I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to go in order to get tickets, so I walked to the entrance of the ferry terminal. But then there was a long line and… I just ended up walking to Paya.

The journey itself wasn’t too difficult but it was sunny and warm out. I was definitely sweating through my shirt by the time I arrived. I also passed a few monitor lizards – some of these guys were BIG!

Finally, I arrived in Paya – a small village, popular for diving, in Tioman Island. Actually, I think that is all anyone is doing in Paya. The whole village is centered around diving and all I see people do all day long is going to/coming back from dives. It’s cute.

I originally planned to do some snorkeling while in Paya but after talking with the dive shop, I discovered that probably wasn’t going to happen. Apparently, shore snorkeling wasn’t really the best. Not much to see, sparse coral and not much marine life. Bummer! Well, I guess I’ll go diving every day.

Renggis Island

That’s what I did. I went diving every day on Paya. The first day was a miss because I arrived mid-afternoon and wanted to just relax. I got situated in my dorm room, had a rest, ate dinner, went for a mini walk around town, and that’s about it.

The first three days, I went on an afternoon dive. The penultimate day, I went on a night dive, and my last day I did two morning dives.

The first two days were at Renggis Island, a nearby island that is known for having blacktip reef sharks.

It has been about two months(?) since I’d gone diving at this point – the last time being Gili Air in Indonesia. Because I’ve been diving more and more frequently, I’m getting much more comfortable with the equipment. It doesn’t feel nearly as daunting. I have 24 dives under my belt at this point! That said, there is something about the descent in Tioman Island that always seemed to be difficult for me. I’m not sure why that is! I was thinking it might be because majority of the dives I’ve done start at a shallower descent and then gradually slope deeper – on these dives it has basically been: okay… down, down, down. It’s kind of scary.

Anyway. I managed to get to the bottom without any equalization issues. And almost right away, we spotted some blacktip reef sharks. One of them was swimming perpendicular to me, then towards me, and then circled away. It was my first experience ever having a shark swim in my direction. Whenever I’ve seen them before, they are swimming away from me haha. I know sharks get a bad rep and obviously they can be dangerous, but they don’t WANT to hurt humans. Like snakes <3.

Then there were TWO sharks! And again, that one shark did a lap near me. I think it was checking out our group. Maybe assessing if any of us would make a tasty meal…?

Unfortunately, the water was much murkier compared to Indonesia. Indonesia was SUCH an underwater dream – totally clear, great visibility. Ugh. Loved it!

At certain points, the muck cleared up and we got decent visibility, but it was nowhere near as good as Indonesia. That’s alright – it was an afternoon dive and typically afternoon isn’t quite as good as morning dives in terms of visibility.

One wildlife sighting that really tickled me was seeing the remora, which is a suckerfish that is often seen hanging out near sharks. They clean parasites off their hosts, etc. Anyway, the remora was swimming around the divers and kind of attaching to their diving tanks and swimming around their bodies. I even had it attach to me for a little bit. I tried to get the guide to take a video but my GoPro was having issues and wasn’t able to get a good one. I did manage to get a screenshot of it on me though (below) haha.

There was also a massive pufferfish hanging near us a lot of the time – its teeth were huge and it was not afraid of the divers at all. At one point, it swam right towards me. I thought it was going to take a bite out of me. I was more afraid of that than the sharks!

Our guide, Ben, found two nudibranchs and he actually went to pick one up and place it near the other one. As he was doing so, the curious pufferfish came over to inspect what he was doing and tried to bite the nudibranch out of Ben’s hand. He managed to get it away and reunited the nudibranchs. Cool! One of these days, I need to get a better underwater camera because I’d love to get close-up shots of nudibranchs. They’re such beautiful creatures and the details really show up well with a macro lens.

The greatest sighting of them all came maybe five minutes before our dive was up… and that was of a cuttlefish. Ben spotted it.

I. Have. Wanted to see. A cuttlefish. FOR. YEARS!!! I am always, always, always looking out for them. I know I can’t force them into existence, but still. Such a hot ticket item for me. And finally, I was able to see one! It was honestly the best situation, too, because it was hovering in place and didn’t mind me coming in for a closer look. My first sighting easily could have just been a glimpse – a quick sighting of a cuttlefish as it swam away from me. But nope, it was just there, allowing me to enjoy its presence. What a beautiful creature! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to spend as much time with it as I would have liked. The dive was ending soon and I had to stick with my dive buddies. Sigh. But still.

WHAT A WIN!

Soyak Island & Night Dive

On the second afternoon, we returned to Renggis Island. This time, it wasn’t quite as exciting. We spotted a shark again but it was a very, very brief encounter – basically just its tail as it was swimming away from us. No cuttlefish. No remora trying to clean parasites off me, etc. Snooze! And the visibility was worse than the day before. Alas.

The following day, we went to Soyak Island. This was better than the day before and I was happy to have a new dive site to explore. We saw some cool fish – the highlight was probably a blue-spotted stingray. There were also some cool sea cucumbers moving around. One of them even pooped as I was taking a video of it LOL. Never seen that before, and I’ve seen a LOT of sea cucumbers.

On my penultimate night, I went on a night dive along the Paya shore. I haven’t gone on a night dive since I got certified at the Great Barrier Reef, but night dives are when a lot of cool creatures are active: octopi, cuttlefish, sharks, nudibranchs, etc. My guide was asking me, “Why do you want to go on this dive? Not much to see.” I was like, uhhh… because it’s something that’s offered and I want to… go… on a night dive..?? The only other person in the group was doing the dive for their advanced certification. I guess Paya beach isn’t really the best spot for night diving. Alas.

It was fine but it was a little disorienting. With just a torch as a source of light, it’s easy to lose sense of the water depth. Luckily, we were in very shallow water – maybe 6 meters deep only, but still. It was kind of a weird sensation. Unfortunately, we didn’t spot much. I saw a small eel, there was some kind of sea slug thing hanging out on the floor. Some little fish were swimming about, others were sleeping. We briefly saw a small black-tip reef shark. Before the dive ended, our guide had us turn off our lights for about 30sec. Lo and behold, the water had bioluminescent plankton swimming around us!

I’m glad I went on the night dive, despite not seeing TOO much. One of these days, I’ll have to get certified to the Advanced level. I’d like to be able to go on more night dives in the future.

Chebeh and Malang Rock

My last morning, I did a double feature – two morning dives. I woke up early, had breakfast, and then off we went. We drove maybe 20min from Paya to get to our first spot, Pulau Chebeh. This dive site was amazing. Our guide told us if we were lucky, we might see manta rays or whale sharks. No such luck BUT it was still an excellent dive.

The visibility was much better than the previous days, which I wasn’t too surprised by. It was farther out and also earlier in the day, which usually works in favor for divers.

We saw a porcupinefish, batfish, TWO blue-spotted stingray, and a scorpionfish. Success!

From there, we boarded the boat, had a break, and then were already on our second dive at Malang Rock. This dive had a lot of luscious coral gardens and some great wildlife. We saw a moray eel, the largest nudibranchs I’ve ever seen, the largest and most beautiful JELLYFISH I’ve ever seen, and… an octopus. This is the first time I’ve ever seen an octopus on a dive. I’ve only ever seen octopi while snorkeling prior. It was pretty shy and didn’t like us crowding around it – but it was cool to observe it and see it changing colors as it started to retreat into its cave.

Also, just to gush about the jellyfish some more… honestly, so beautiful. Its tentacles were incredibly long, it had billowing skirts under its “head” and small, little fish were swimming around and on top of the jellyfish, perhaps trying to clean. Really, really neat. Such an incredible sighting!

And what a way to wrap up my dives!

It’s weird to think that this will be the last time I’ll be in the water for some time. I PROBABLY will not be diving while in Vietnam because by the time I get to the dive spots in Vietnam, it will still kinda be rainy season. And then likely won’t be diving in Cambodia or Laos, so it won’t be until Thailand that I’m reunited with the ocean again! That’s alright. I certainly got some great experiences to fill me up until next time!

Jungle Walks

So, thus far, I’ve only covered the daily diving portion of the week, but I’ve also spent a lot of time walking around the jungle trails in Paya, too.

Sometimes I don’t do that much research prior to going to a place… often not until a day or two before getting there. This is how I discovered I had to either take a water taxi from Tekek to Paya or walk for 1.5 hours. I was like, “damn” lol. The internet was ALSO trying to tell me that there were NO trails connecting Tekek to Paya and also that there weren’t any walking trails around Paya whatsoever. I was like, what the FUCK am I going to do for a week if all I’m doing is diving for an hour a day for a week? BORING! But the internet was wrong. There was a trail from Tekek to Paya. From Paya to Genting. And behind Paya, there was a trail leading to Rock Falls and “Mother Willow,” whom I definitely wanted to see. The internet was also trying to tell me that there were no walking trails from Paya to Mother Willow, which was briefly devastating. I WANTED TO SEE MOTHER WILLOW, DAMN IT!

Anyway, the internet was wrong. So many trails behind Paya – most of them were ATV trails. People can hire ATVs and just ride around the trails.

I’ve mentioned that majority of the people here are here simply for the diving. So when people saw little weirdo Steven walking around with a headlamp at 9pm looking for snakes… hahaha. I am here for the diving, but I am also here for the snakes. Target? Vipers.

On my first night, I didn’t venture too far. I didn’t know where all the trails in town were just yet, so I just walked to a boardwalk that overlooked a small river strip. And, guess what? I spotted a snake in the water maybe 20sec after shining my headtorch along the river. But it was so fast and I couldn’t get a picture. DAMN IT! I continued to walk for some time but then returned back to the river. It was there again. Success! (As an aside, I actually was so annoyed that I wasn’t able to get a picture of it at first. I was like, ugh, now I’ll never be able to know what type of snake that was! Only to see them basically every subsequent night at the river. Calm down, Steven.)

I’ve since learned this is a dog-faced water snake. Why is it dog-faced? Well, the picture isn’t close enough to see, but its face actually resembles a dog. Its eyes are also higher up on its head than most snakes, allowing it to kind of submerge itself in mud and still see above the surface. Cute! I must have seen four of these snakes during my time on Tioman – all looking for food along the same river. Maybe it was the same one, but I think there were more. Some were pretty small and others looked bigger.

Basically, around diving, I would go on walks on these trails. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes afternoon, sometimes at night. Sometimes all three of those. I walked from Paya to Genting one day (which is just another nearby village), but otherwise just walked around the jungle trails behind the village of Paya.

Rock Falls & Mother Willow

Early on, I went to Rock Falls. I followed the black&yellow reflective signs to get to the falls. It took maybe ten minutes from the start of the trail. There were small waterfalls cascading between large boulders. Rock Falls delivered exactly as promised – small waterfalls and big rocks.

I made a mental note that this would be a good spot to explore on a night walk. I did return on two more nights to that spot. On one night, I spotted a poisonous rock frog, which I’ve never seen before. I actually saw three of them that night. They were SO cute! their hands were really big and so were their eyes. Really cool looking frogs. Poisonous, though lol.

On the second night that I returned, I spotted… an Asian vine snake! It was very slender and was resting on some twigs. I snapped a couple of pictures and it got annoyed, slithering deeper into tree branches. Sorry, buddy. I was pleased to spot it, though. I spend so much time looking for wildlife and, yes, I know, I’m obsessed with snakes, so when I do see one I get really excited. (P.S. this is the first time I’ve seen a vine snake that isn’t a super bright, vibrant green. This one was much more muted, almost greyish green.)

Another day, I spotted an Asian vine snake during the day time. That one was a MUCH more vibrant shade of green – pretty similar to the one I’d observed in Cameron Highlands a week and a half prior. While I’d seen Asian vine snakes during the day twice before, this was the first time I actually had my camera with me so I was delighted to get some half-decent pictures of it. Yay!

One of my last “destination hikes” around Paya was to visit Mother Willow. About 45min from the start of the trail, Mother Willow is a massive tree with liana vines drooping down all around it.

What a spectacular tree. While not technically a willow tree, it certainly was reminiscent of one. It did seem like the spirit of Grandmother Willow from Pocahantas. Cute! I also spotted some more of those flying lizards around the area.

All in all, the jungle walks around Paya were fruitful, if not a little unnerving at times. Some spots along the trails are quite narrow and bushy – I don’t like those as much. When the trails are so narrow, I can’t see if there is a snake hiding right at the edge of them. While I want to see a snake, I want to make sure I can give it enough berth. For this reason, I didn’t go on some of those trails at night. I said to myself, “yeah, that’s probably where they’re all hanging out, but that’s also probably where I’ll get bitten and die.” So no, thanks.

Some other wildlife along the trails included: long-tailed macaques, a beautiful bird called a greater racket-tailed drongo (look at those tailfeather plumes), and HUGE monitor lizards, like basically Komodo dragons.

I actually saw one massive lizard chasing after another one that was… also very large, in the river. Scary things. One of them was even next to the stairs outside my dorm room haha. EEK!

(The photo on the right shows the larger monitor lizard chasing after the smaller one!)

Oh, I also spotted an owl during a night walk which was cool. They are completely silent when they fly, it’s nuts. I saw a horned owl, went to snap a picture and it was gone. Didn’t hear it fly away or anything.

All in all, my time on Tioman Island was a total success. It was the perfect blend of underwater time mixed with jungle time. Because I had the freedom to be immersed in the jungle on my own, day and night, I probably preferred it over Taman Negara (although, on Taman Negara I could have seen tigers, tapir, etc. Not so much on Tioman).

Thanks, Tioman Island! It’s funny to think I had no idea what Tioman Island was maybe three weeks ago and then it ended up being one of my favorite spots in Malaysia.

Rose Thorn Bouquet

Here we go!

Rose

Well, the rose for me is, of course, the wildlife. And yet, aside from Borneo, I never initially pictured Malaysia as having so much wildlife to offer.

From dusky leaf monkeys to Asian vine snakes, to scorpions and huntsman spiders, poisonous rock frogs, praying mantis and stick bugs, flying lemurs, owls, flying lizards, drongo birds, and the ever-present-in-Asia long-tailed macaques. Malaysia is actually teeming with wildlife if you just know where to look!

And technically, I spotted more snakes on my own in Malaysia than I did in Indonesia (saw more TECHNICALLY in Indonesia, but those were on snake tours). Three vine snakes, three or four dog-faced water snakes, a mangrove cat snake, and a dog-toothed cat snake. Success, success! Thanks, Malaysia!

Thorn

I think the thorn for me has to be the shitty accommodation. I feel like since I’ve been in Malaysia, it’s just been back to back… shit. Lol. To be fair, I am operating on a budget so I try to go with the cheaper options, but I also have been more of a stickler on high rated hostels lately and I feel even going with those has let me down! The best accommodation I had was probably in Kuala Tahan – everything else honestly sucked.

Oh, and the mosquitoes. Between Taman Negara and Tioman, I am completely chewed up. And that’s WITH bug spray. Bastards.

Bouquet

The bouquet is hands down seeing a cuttlefish for the first time ever. Malaysia will always hold a very special place in my heart because of that. I have spent SO much time underwater the past few years – notably in Australia but also Asia as well now… and I’d never seen one until now. And such a sighting – where I could observe it as it floated in one position. UGH! I loved it. Such weird little creatures.

Miscellaneous

One major annoyance at my Tioman hostel has been the bathroom. It just is kind of gross and when I first got there, there must have been dozens of mosquitoes in the bathroom. I was like AHH how am I supposed to be in here?! The employees ended up coming to spray the room but even still, the skeeters kept coming back. I think there is a pipe leakage in the walls or something because it kind of has a sewage-y smell. There were also weird grub-looking insects, little spiders, etc. Just a gnarly bathroom experience lol. Not to mention, I already was dealing with about 1,000 mosquitoes every night while going on my walks. I don’t need them in my bathroom, too! Geez.

One day, I came very close to fainting, which was crazy. I’ve had these spells before where I’ll be laying down watching a show in bed and then I stand up and walk across the room super quickly. I’ll get a little light-headed and usually I just put my hand on the wall to steady myself and after a moment it passes. Well, this time, I stood up, walked a few steps and I actually had to lower myself to my hands and knees to avoid passing out. That’s never happened before! I think it was a combination of standing/moving too quickly but also being warm/slightly dehydrated that day.

One of the first times I saw the massive monitor lizards in Tioman, I was looking at the river. I saw something far away and I thought, “is that a crocodile? No, I don’t think they have them here… wait, could it be an otter? I heard they sometimes have them in Malaysia and definitely Singapore.” Nope. It was an incredibly large monitor lizard. Crazy.

One evening, I was standing on the jetty enjoying the breeze and in the water below, I saw a baby black-tip reef shark swimming near shore. Cute!

I tried Dubai Chocolate for the first time in Kuala Lumpur to see what all the hype was about. It was only USD$7 so I figured, why not? Kory told me in Australia, it’s like USD$25, so… I would say, for $7, definitely worth it. $25? No.

Art of the Week

I LOVE this piece. Combining the rhinoceros hornbill with a python was such a solid idea. I feel this has laid the foundation for a whole new series I’d like to explore – people + wildlife. I’m really happy with how the human face turned out, the curvature of the snake, and the hornbill. If anything, I’d maybe like to refine the rhino part of the hornbill’s beak, but that’s already. Nothing can be perfect. Very pleased with this, though. I actually ended up finally changing my phone background from the last piece that I was really happy with, which was from basically a year ago.

Reflections

Wow – and just like that, my time in Malaysia is over! Full disclosure, I’m still on Tioman Island. I have one more night walk ahead of me – so if I’m lucky, I’ll be sharing another snake picture or two in the next blog post! Tomorrow, I take the ferry from Tioman back to Mersing and then hop on a 4hr bus ride to Singapore. Hopefully, I’ll be meeting up with two friends there: John from Darwin and Tijana from Serbia (whom I met on Gili Air). That will be lovely!

I have loved being in Malaysia. From Kuala Lumpur to Penang, to Cameron Highlands to Taman Negara, to Tioman Island… geez. I wish I had more time! Although, I also think the duration has been perfect. I’ve been able to experience a lot of cool wildlife and scenery and I haven’t been bored or felt I overstayed my welcome here – a reason to come back one day, hopefully when Jasper is in town!

While I was originally hesitant about going to Singapore (‘it’s just a city!’, I thought), I am now really excited. Singapore is an island that is off the southern tip of peninsular Malaysia. Because of its island status, there are a LOT of nature reserves and in those nature reserves is a high concentration of wildlife… and yes, that means snakes. I have a number of hiking trails I have mapped out that I’d like to visit while in Singapore. I’ll be there for a week, so let’s see how it goes!!!

And of course, I have to mention that it has been three years since I’ve left Chicago to begin traveling. THREE YEARS – how insane is that? It is hard to believe. What a journey it has been. For those who have followed along this entire time, thank you for joining me on this adventure. Sometimes, I stop and think about the different chapters I’ve gone through. Creating a new life in a new city in Perth, traveling around much of Australia afterwards… re-learning Spanish and the friendships I made in Queenstown, then road-tripping around in my van Goldie in Aotearoa New Zealand. And now Asia. It feels like different lives in some ways. Wow.

Anyway.

Until next time, sending you all my love. x