Tenggol Island - Blogabond

We arrived in Dungun to find a town of no taxis. We spoke to some lads in a phone stall next to the bus stop to find out our choice was to walk and find the hotel in a completely new town or try and catch a very hit and miss local bus service. After looking at the size of our packs and the fact that the streets have no names we decided to go for the local bus service. As we were crossing the road, the lads from the phone store whistled to us to get in to their MPV. Dubiously we agreed to let them take us to our hotel. It turns out, fortunately, they were a decent bunch of lads and taking pity on the English guys who must know "David Beckham". We tried to insist on giving them some money, but they wouldn't have any of it and sent us on our way saying "we are friends now".

After a stroll along the beach with all the locals fishing, we walked for half an hour to find a Pizza Hut! I don't think they have ever had a ginger in their town, as there was a certain amount of pointing, giggling and subtle photo taking.

March 8
At 9am the phone rang and it was our lift saying they were at the jetty, where were we? Our info had definetely said 9.30am. We hurried down to the jetty to be greeted by the grinning Malay guys who were going to take us on our diving expedition. We got on to a twin 60 hp boat. We went straight out of the harbour and out on to the open sea with a very faint island on the horizon - 28km of bouncing off the waves, we arrived at our Island Tenggol.
Most people would agree that their ideal spot would be on a small deserted island with white sands, turquoise sea and palm trees.

View from our hut on the beach

Tenggol turned out to be even better than that as it had all those things plus showers, chefs that cooked you massive meals 3 times a day, satellite TV (after 5pm when the generator was on) and diving equipment - perfect!
Not to say we got to chill out on this desert island, because we then did 3 dives only with space between to rest and eat.
The only thing I would change about this island is I would introduce a chilled Tiger Beer!
To finish the day off the sunset over the mainland with some clouds which turned the sky and sea red.

Sunset over Bay

We then played cards late in to the night with the discovery channel on in the background.

March 9
We arose early to attempt to eat the four dishes they presented to us for breakfast (who eats that much pasta for breakfast, everyday?) The day was spent relaxing in the sun, nipping out on the speed boat and diving. The first of these dives we left our small island and went across to an even smaller island which was 30m x 10m. We dived down to 32m and came back up for a safety stop in which I saw a baby Tiger Shark about 1m long. (he was the only one who saw it - Trace)

Our second dive was round 5 wrecks which was an eerie experience with their being little coral and low visibility - about 5m. We dived to 38m - I dont think our dive instructor has heard of the golden rule of starting with the deepest dive first - it was off our dive table scale!

Just do it!

We sat on our very own beach sunbathing for a few hours and watched the sun set on the horizon - what a great day!!

The resort staff asked James if he drank alcohol, James said he did and was told to "wait there" - I think he was hoping for an ice cold Tiger beer, well he got the ice, but also a bottle of cognac to help himself to.

March 10
Again we attempted to eat a ridiculously big breakfast which would be ok if they didn't feed us anything else, but as they fed us 3 course meals at any given opportunity we were still full from the day before.
After breakfast it was that sad time where we had to roll off the island (which was 3km x 2km in size and the guy had bought 2 hectares for the price of 80 000 pounds - this is very tempting)
We went on the mad speed boat dash across the large rolling ocean waves to the town of Kuala Dungun. (Trace - if you didn't need the loo before you went you certainly had to check your pants when you got off!)

written by

James & Tracey on March 7, 2007 from Kuala Dungun, Malaysia

from the travel blog: James & Tracey World Tour

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