A trip to Tioman Island

MANILA, Philippines - Candles, crisp table linens, a symphony of grilled meats and seafood — the barbecue dinner at the hotel dive center was indeed a nice touch. But it was, upon further reflection, also a bit unnecessary. I assumed the people who had hatched the idea and graciously followed it through would’ve been tired by then. As I would later discover, they did it to show me just how special their home truly was, so going above and beyond the expected was a given.     

Earlier that day, the boat captains and dive masters at the Berjaya Resort in Tioman Island, located off the east coast of peninsular Malaysia, took me to the marine park jetty to feed the fish. Then we were off to nearby Renggis Island for some snorkelling, until a mild allergy prevented me from seeing black-tip reef sharks, parrotfish and swordfish orbit the tiny, rocky outcrop. I, too, was asked if I had wanted to go diving, which I politely declined as my mind raced back to a somewhat traumatic experience at Taganga, a small fishing village on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, where a 21-year-old me foolishly signed up for a PADI intro course while intoxicated and sleep-deprived.

Slow And Low

Luckily, I had our squid fishing expedition to look forward to the next afternoon. Moored in the South China Sea, bobbing in the waves, I was amazed at how familiar these locals were with the surrounding waters and islets, using only the growing constellation of stars as their version of Google Maps. Though my mission to snag even one 10-armed marine creature was unsuccessful, I was beyond thrilled that I was able to do something that made me feel like Jacques Cousteau. Sitting there, spooling the twine, was a still point in a turning world. Slow and low — that was the tempo.

As the writer and novelist Paul Theroux once said, “Travel involves early starts, hard beds, obscure squawks in the night, the presence of strangers, a great deal of negotiation, and often a measure of insecurity.” Waking up in my beachfront cabin, I congratulated myself for remembering to keep my windows shut as long-tail macaques and monitor lizards are known to roam the resort’s 210 acres along with Speedo-clad pot-bellied Europeans and Korean ladies in wide-brimmed hats and kitten heels. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that I was stubbornly pale or that I could use a few more crunches: Everyone was in a blissful state of mind and I blended right in.   

Half-Fantasized Memories

The Berjaya Tioman Resort is a family-friendly place, the kind where kids can play tennis while their parents doze off at the spa. Jungle trekking was a bit too Bear Grylls for my taste so golf wound up on the agenda. While Zainal, the golf operations executive, complimented my form — muscle memory, perhaps, from the lessons I took when I was 16 — he seemed disappointed that I wasn’t taking our session that seriously. Abnormally giddy after driving a golf cart around the premises, I couldn’t help but recall a scene in High School Musical 2 in which Zac Efron — as Troy Bolton — stomped across a golf course angrily singing Bet On It. To quote the classic rock band Phish, “My mind’s got a mind of its own.”

Navigating Kampung Tekek, the most populous among Tioman’s eight main villages, I observed that while the island was already commercially developed, it was not as busy as guide books make it out to be. There were hardly any tourists unlike in Langkawi, which I visited three years ago. In a way, I liked that I was free to form half-fantasized memories that the sunrises and sunsets were staged especially for me.

Replenished but not quite ready to return to my urban routine, I made my way to the airport to catch my flight back to Kuala Lumpur. I had been told repeatedly that Tioman Island found fame in the 1958 movie South Pacific, where it was depicted as Bali Ha’i. I have yet to see that musical, but suddenly feeling a great love for time and life and people, I do get why the locals are so proud of this fact.

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Berjaya Tioman Resort – Malaysia, P.O. Box 4, 86807 Mersing, Johor, Malaysia. www.berjayahotel.com. E-mail tioman.rsvn@berjayahotel.com

Special thanks to Pravir Mishra of Berjaya Tioman Resort and Bianca Tamayo of Tourism Malaysia.

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