We made it! After a hot and exhausting week in Kuala Lumpur we got on a bus and 6 hours later we arrived to the Eastern side of the country. After some hassle and running we managed to get on the last boat to Pulau Tioman island and another 2,5 hours later we were in the middle of nowhere. Monkeys, snakes, crazy Malays on motorbikes and lazy turists laying under palm trees. The way it's supposed to be!

Tioman is a fairly isolated island, you can only get here with one boat that goes 3 times a day and everything that's sold and supplied here comes from the mainland by the same boat, once a week. Oh the joy, when the local supermarket runs out of toilet paper...you can imagine.

We spent the first night on the more populated Western side, hated it, and early next morning we set out to the only village on the Eastern side of Tioman. Sounds easy, but it's 7km through the jungle, a huge mountain, no local transport and +35 degrees in a shade. Optimistic, properly dressed and with 10l of water and a 20kg backpack each we set out for the Juara village. After 40min however, we had only managed 2,5km, were completely soaked in sweat and had drunk most of our water. Maybe not "mission impossible", but "mission bloody exhausting" at least. Thank god for innovative Malay people who have constructed their own 4-wheel-drive cars and are willing to take pour suckers like us over the mountain!

30min later we arrived at Juara village and Anton sighed :"I could live and die here". White sand, relaxed atmosphere, the nicest people and.... it's exactly what we have been looking for! We spent a week doing nothing and then walked up to the owners of our favourite bar, "Beach Shack", and asked for work for food and accomodation. And here we are: running a hostel/restaurant on the beach together with the owners Tim (Australian) and Izan (Malay), their 5 cats and 2 monkeys. Tim, in a true Aussie style, is teaching us to surf, Izan is teaching us to cook Malay food, and we ourselves make sure to snorkel, swim and enjoy life on an island...which is not always easy. Scorpions and snakes and huge lizzards we have managed to avoid so far, but when Monika got bitten by a monkey it wasn't THAT fun anymore. With her hand swollen as a pillow and fever raising every hour we once again got ourselves over the mountain, to the only hospital in Tioman. Freaked out we expected immediate hospitalization and big fuzz....AND THEY LAUGHED! "Monkey no cat. You no pet monkey" the doctor kept telling, whilst he gave Monika injections against everything and bags with colourfull pills. 2 days later she could once again use her hand but from now on Anton is the one to give the monkeys food and to take them surfing.

So this is our beach life. Don't know how long we will stay here, but we have at least one goal ahead: the monsoon - the boards are vaxed and ready for action in the waves! We'll be in touch when we get enough of the island life.

Surfs Up! M & A