Our bus from Singapore left promptly, and in a short while had passed through the city to the northern border with Malaysia at Woodlands. We had to get off the bus here and pass through a checkpoint to officially leave Singapore before getting back on the bus and crossing a bridge into Malaysia.

On the far side of the bridge we had to alight again, fill in our immigration forms in a big hall and pass through passport control, as well as getting all our bags scanned. With all our papers in order we got back on the bus for the journey to Mersing, on the east coast of Malaysia.

As soon as we were across the border we felt like we were in another country, with the domes of islamic style buildings on either side and signs written in Arabic, as well as the local Bahasa Malaysia. The bus journey to Mersing was a fairly uneventful few hours, most of which I slept through. As we approached the coast, there were more palm trees and a tropical feel, before we arrived in a fairly nondescript bus station beside a canal, in what looked like a small town.

As soon as we got off the bus we were greeted by a chap from a nearby travel agent who informed us that we had missed the last ferry from Mersing out to Tioman Island, since they can only sail at high tides. After confirming this, we booked some tickets through him for the ferry the next morning, then set off to find some accommodation in Mersing.

We walked the short distance to the town centre, which consisted of two main streets lined with shops, and made a beeline for the Embassy Hotel based on a recommendation in our guide book. We found the place, checked out the room and found it basic but with everything we needed, and at a good price, so we dumped our bags and paid for it.

After that we headed out into town, walking down the main street to the boat jetty where we would catch the ferry the following morning. Here, we stopped at the Port Cafe and had some lunch, in my case a delicious chicken satay. Lucy had a cheese slap sandwich.

After lunch we wandered back through town and, without much else to see, chilled out in our hotel room for the afternoon and evening. Later in the evening we nipped out for some more food, this time opting for a basic-looking local place which had curries and so forth on display. The very helpful restarauteur told us about the various dishes on offer and described them, and in the end we opted for some mee goreng and roti chanai, both of which we had had before.

The food was delicious, and we ended up ordering another round of roti, along with some daal and curry to dip them in. After our dinner we made our way back to the hotel and read a bit before heading off to sleep.

In the morning we got up, showered and left the hotel for the jetty again. As it was approaching monsoon season, we had expected the ferry and the island itself to be quite quiet, but we arrived at the jetty to find crowds of people waiting for the ferry. We got our boarding passes and waited for half an hour or so before filing into the small ferry with everyone else.

Grabbing a seat in the air conditioned indoor area of the boat, we settled down for the journey out to Tioman. I tried reading for a bit but once we were underway, the motion of the boat lurching over the waves soon made me feel a bit queasy, and I spent the rest of the journey sleeping.

After an hour and a half we pulled into our first stop at the island, Genting. From what we could see through the small windows on the boat, the island looked great with a thin strip of golden sand backed by towering hillsides of jungle, all surrounded by turqouise water. The only thing spoiling the picture were the towering grey clouds moving in overhead.

After Genting, the boat hopped its way up the west coast of the island, stopping at a few more places before our chosen point of disembarkation, Air Batang or ABC. There weren't many people left on the boat by the time we got there, which we hoped was a good sign with regards to finding accommodation.

We piled off the boat, grabbed our bags and made our way down the jetty to ABC, finding it to be a strip of chilled out bungalows and chalets strung along a narrow conrete walkway behind the beach to our right and left, interspersed with dive shops and backed by the jungle rising sharply to the centre of the island.

Opting to try our luck to our left, we wandered along the concrete path which seemed to serve as the towns main road, occasionally giving way to motorbike-and-sidecar combos which puttered up and down. We had a look at a few different bungalows before opting for one at Double Ace, set on a hillside overlooking the sea below.

We left our bags in the room and set out for a walk first up to the end of the walkway past more bungalows and restaurants, then back towards the jetty and beyond, where we stopped at a little restaurant on the beachfront for lunch.

As we were about to order some food, I noticed a familiar face walking past on the path in front of us. I shouted a hello and was soon recognised by Andrea, a New Zealander who we had met in Siem Reap with her brother Dave. We had originally met HIM in Hoi An in Vietnam. By this time we had had so many of these weird coincidences bumping into people that we were completely nonplussed, and immediately just started chatting as if bumping into someone on a random island off Malaysia after seeing them in Cambodia was perfectly normal.

We ordered some food and sat chatting a while longer, before heading our separate ways with a loose plan to meet up for happy hour beers later in the day.

Lucy and I headed down to the other end of the village to check it out, and found it much the same as our end, but we did spot a cool monitor lizard gliding through a creek under a bridge in front of us. At our end of town, they just waddled across the path.

After coming to the end of the concrete path, at some stairs leading to a pathway down the coast, we about-turned and made our way back to our bungalow. Here, we took refuge from the heat in the room but still got a great view of the sea through our window. I wrote some of our horrendously-behind blog whilst Lucy had a nap.

Around 6pm, with the sun heading towards the horizon, we made our way down to the path and along to Nazri's, the bar at the next set of bungalows along, for some happy hour beers. Here, we found Andrea and we sat chatting and drinking until the sun went down. We had spoken to the guy at the restaurant next door to Nazri's earlier and he had told us about their nightly BBQ, which tonight was going to include freshly caught marlin and barracuda. With our hunger building, we decided to pay the restaurant a visit, and were soon presented with two massive plates of BBQ'd fish, rice, chips and veggies which we made short work of, much to the dismay of the local cats who were desperate to get a morsel.

Towards the end of our meal, the nightly thunder and lightning started up, and we were soon treated to an awesome display as the forked lightning lit the sky and sea up lilac, accompanied by the distant rumbling of thunder.

After watching the lightning for a while, we decided to call it a night and head back to the bungalow where we sat on the balcony, reading and trying to write some more blog entries whilst watching huge bats swoop around the trees between us and the ocean.

In the morning we slept in for ages under the mosquito net covering our bed. Lucy hadn't slept well, distracted by the monumental rainstorm during the night and the heat, affected little by the fan spinning above the bed, but I'd had a great sleep. It was nice not having anything we felt like getting up for, and we enjoyed the long lie.

When we finally got up, we pottered around our bungalow for a while, before heading into 'town' for some food. After stopping at one of the dive shops for me to sign up for an afternoon dive, we ended up walking the whole length of the beachside strip in the midday blazing sunshine to find somewhere to eat, as most places were closed up, a bit odd considering it was lunch time.

At the restaurant that was open, we got some tasty but too-generously proportioned nasi goreng and mee goreng and some roti, getting stuffed before we were even finished. After sitting eating looking out over the turqoise water and the military ships gathered on the horizon which had appeared the day before, we set off back down the path to our chalet. Along the way we had our first encounter with the island's other wild resident besides the monitor lizards, the monkeys. We passed a troupe of about 12 of the mischevious rascals, climbing along power lines, jumping to and from trees and chewing on fruit alongside the path, some of them with babies clinging to their backs or bellies. It was so fun to see such exotic animals as them and the lizards in the wild, rather than in a zoo or on TV, and it really made us feel like we were in a far off place.

Back at the chalet I got changed into my swimmers and set off back to the dive shop, leaving Lucy to relax and write postcards. Once at the shop I got signed my disclaimer forms and got set up with some equipment, before waiting around for a while with the other divers for the boat to return and pick us up. I got talking to the Finnish girl and trio of French who would be accompanying me on the dive before the boat was in place at the jetty and we could head down the path to get on board.

Once on board the dive boat, we made short time heading up the west coast of the island to Soyak, a small island just off the coast of Tioman. On the way we set up our equipment, and once we were in place we got in the water after a quick pre-dive briefing. I noticed a hissing coming from my regulator indicating some leaking air, but after some reassurances from the dive master that it was okay, we carried on with dive and descended to the seabed some 9 metres below.

After some initial worry regarding the tiny leak of air, I was soon quite comfortable and back in the swing of diving as we set off swimming just above the seabed. In total we were down for around 45 minutes, during which we saw a stingray, a big puffer fish, a huge trigger fish, numerous colourful and oddly shaped nudibranchs and the icing on the cake: my first sea turtle, complete with attached remora. I had been desperate to see a turtle on my previous dives as they are one of my favourite animals, and finally got the chance on this dive, as one emerged from the murk some 10m in front of us, to swim calmly past me less than a foot away.

The rest of the dive went well and we were soon back on the surface and clambering back onto the boat for the journey back to ABC. Once back at the jetty we unloaded the gear, walked back to the dive shop and cleaned it off. I then filled in my log book and wandered back up to the chalet to see what Lucy had been up to. I found her on the balcony, taking in our sea view, having spent her afternoon catching up on our long overdue postcard writing.

After I had a quick shower, we headed back to the bar opposite the dive shop for some happy hour beers, which we enjoyed on plastic chairs looking out over the beach. The backdrop was great, with the sun setting behind massive cloud formations and the armada of the south pacific fleet immobilely carrying out their war games near the horizon.

After a couple of beers we decided to head for some food and, on the recommendation of Fami the dive master, made for the restaurant at Nazri's place near to our accommodation. When we got to the place we found Andrea already there, and joined her since she had just ordered. The restaurant was up on a second storey with a good outlook over the darkened beach, and had a huge menu. We ordered some Indian food but weren't so impressed with the dishes we were served. Unlike most other Indian food we had ever eaten, both dished were packed with cloves and star anise, which we kept getting in most mouthfuls with unwanted crunchy and pungent results.

After fending off a starving and persistent cat who kept climbing up on us, the railing near us, and the seats around us to try and get at our leftovers, we paid the bill, said our goodbyes to Andrea and walked back to our chalet, just as a massive rain shower began. We got back to the chalet a little bit moist, then took our seats on the balcony to do some reading and blog writing, with the night time sounds of insects all around us.

After shooing a big grasshopper off the door so Lucy could get in to bed, and getting a bit further on with the blog, I went in to bed myself. Neither of us had a very comfortable sleep though, with the mosquito net over the bed blocking most of the airflow from the ceiling fan resulting in a rather stifling heat in the room. Eventually around 4am I got up and opened the window to create a through draft, which we hadn't done before for fear of bugs coming in the screenless window. With the window open we managed to get a few more hours of more comfortable sleep, until we were woken by the sound of rain drumming off the roof around 7am.

I didn't think the rain bode very well for my chances of a good dive, but I still got up around 8, got together my stuff and headed along to the dive shop. Here I met three other Malaysian guys from Kuala Lumpur who would be joining me on the dive. Once we had our gear sorted we walked to the boat and were soon underway. We had to nip around to Salang again, then next town up the island, to drop off empty air tanks and pick up our lunch before we headed out to two small islands a few miles off of Tioman under a fairly cloudy sky.

We set up our gear on the way out, then I and one of the Malaysian guys spent the rest of the journey lying on the roof of the boat snoozing until we reached the dive site. At the site we had a quick briefing before jumping into the water. We descended to the seabed around 15m then had a nice dive around the coral-laden seabed and large pinnacle where we saw some more colorful nudibranchs as well as numerous tropical fish. Towards the end of the dive we found a little purple scorpion fish hiding in a rock.

After coming back up to the surface, we clambered back onto the boat then sat tight as we sailed through some rather large swells to the island where the second dive site was located, with a bit of rain falling. Finding a relatively sheltered spot, the boat moored up and we were served a big dish of chicken fried rice and some watermelon. With the rocking and rolling I was feeling a little bit queasy but managed to get half a plate of rice down me before waiting for half an hour or so until we were ready for the second dive.

By this time the sky was a lovely bright blue and the water an incredible turqouise, a nice change from the overcast grey of earlier. We jumped off the boat into the water in the swells just off the rocks of the island, leaving one of the Malaysian guys on the boat as he was feeling too sick. We headed down through the water to the bottom some 8m below, and although the visibility wasn't great, everything was illuminated in a fantastic turquoise light and looked stunning.

On the bottom we swam around the coral along the side of the island, passing a couple of big moray eels hiding in coral and some blue spotted stingrays, until we reached the first of many swim-throughs. Here, we turned and, as the name suggests, swam through a crack in the rock from one side of the tail of the island to the other. This was my first experience of swimming underneath any rocks, and I was surprisingly comfortable, just enjoying all the life clinging to the rock walls around us and the light as it slanted down through the cracks from above. We swam back and forth through numerous caves and passages filled with huge shoals of shimmering yellow snapper and along rock walls with corals, anemones and nudibranchs all hanging on in the surges washing back and forth.

After exploring this underwater wonderland for the best part of an hour, it was time to head back to the surface where we got back on the boat and flaked out as we were taken back to ABC. Once we had unloaded the gear, walked back to the dive shop and filled in our log books, I headed back to our chalet to see Lucy, in a heavy rain storm which had just started.

I found her hiding from the heat inside our room with the fan on and all the doors and windows open, having been there all day reading. I grabbed a shower and Lucy nipped down to the nearby shop to pick up some snacks as neither of us had eaten much all day. We munched on these in the room for a while then headed out once the sun got a bit lower in the sky, to get some happy hour beers.

At the bar by the dive shop, we met Jeff who I had dived with earlier, and sat for a while with some beers watching the sun go down. As we sat there the bar got busier and we got chatting to two Irish guys (including our second ever Enda) before we left to get some food.

Based on some good word-of-mouth reviews, we walked once again to the far end of ABC, to the sunset corner, a little bar/restaurant right on the sand at the end of the beach. We met the two other guys I had been diving with earlier in the day and sat chatting to them before ordering some food. Realising just how hungry we were, we ordered a pizza, some chicken nuggets and two portions of garlic bread to share. As usual when the food started to arrive we worried we'd ordered too much, but the empty plates 15 minutes later proved us wrong.

After chatting for a bit more with the other patrons at the bar, and watching a baby python slink its way across the beach, we said goodnight and walked back along the path to our chalet. Before heading to bed we once again took our places on the balcony to read and write.

After a far more comfortable sleep without the mosquito net, we awoke once again to the sound of rain pouring down on our roof. This soon put paid to our notion of going snorkelling while it was high tide in the morning, and we returned to bed for a long lie.

When we eventually got up, we spent the rest of the morning bumming around the chalet, trying to sort out some of our backlog of photos and videos. When we started getting hungry, and with the rain off, we took a wander down the beach to ABCD restaurant where we'd had our BBQ the other night. We arrived just in time as another torrential downpour started, and we ate a tasty lunch with the rain drumming on the metal roof above us.

After eating, we took the opportunity during a break in the rain to make our way back to the chalet, managing to make it back dry. Once again we lazed around with the windows and doors open to give us a view of the sea and some fresh air. We sorted some more photos and played some Backpacker until the evening.

Since it was happy hour we decided to head down for the last 15 minutes and grabbed some beers and a G&T at the bar near our chalet. We then wandered down to the dive bar since they were supposed to be having a Hallowe'en BBQ/party. Unfortunately the BBQ had been rained off and the party didn't look like it had quite kicked off. We were hungry so walked back up to ABCD, arriving just before the owner shut up for the night, to go to the party of course. We managed to order some more BBQ'd barracuda and some chicken, as well as a side of mashed potatoes and baked beans to satisfy Lucy's cravings.

An Aussie guy appeared and we got chatting to him as we ate, since we were the only people in the restaurant including the staff. After a really tasty meal we sat for a little bit to wait out another downpour, before wandering back to our place, deciding to give the party a miss.

We took up our places on the balcony for the last time, then packed our bags and showered before getting off to bed, knowing we had to get up early to catch our ferry in the morning.

Somehow we managed to get up easily at 6am, even though it was dark and we'd only had a few hours sleep. The darkness reminded us of what it would be like every morning once we got home in the winter, which was a bit of a depressing thought.

We wandered down from our bungalow and along to the boat pier as it got light, then waited with a few other people until the ferry turned up just after 7am. We got aboard, grabbed some seats and made ourselved comfortable as the ferry got underway, only for it to stop 10 minutes later at the next town down the coast. For some unknown reason, we had to hang around here for nearly half an hour before we got moved from one ferry onto another. Finally we got going and set sail back to the mainland.

After a nice nap on the ferry we were back on dry land at Mersing a couple of hours later. We went to the Port Cafe near the jetty and had some food in the form of a delicious pizza. Not the most orthodox choice for 10:30 am but tasty nonetheless. After eating, we walked up through Mersing to the bus station and bought tickets for the next bus to Kuala Lumpur, supposedly at 12:30.

We spent the next while sitting on plastic chairs at the bus station until the bus finally turned up at 1 pm. Luckily there were plenty of stray cats around to keep us amused as we watched them fighting over scraps of food and jumping around in sheets of polythene.

We were glad to finally get on the bus though, and get on our way to Kuala Lumpur.