old travel report: dive tioman 25-27 mar 2005
Stuck in a Moment
Put off writing this report for so long because it was quite terrifying even recounting the events. Getting stuck in a broken-down boat in the middle of the sea would certainly not be anyone’s idea of fun.
The trip seemed jinxed from the start. Four of the passengers of the coach we were taking to Mersing came half an hour late. They were a Malay family of Pak, Ma and two girls. Usually, half an hour would be no big deal but this time, the traffic jam on the Causeway would worsen the later we were. It was a Good Friday long weekend and scores of Singaporeans were driving up to Malaysia for a holiday. Obnoxious Pak was unapologetic about being late and audaciously demanded for other passengers to make space for his family to sit together. After getting his way, he was still unsatisfied and grumbled throughout the entire journey.
A usual half-hour trip across the immigration points of Singapore and Malaysia stretched to an incredible 4 hours, in part contributed by a noisy Indian family of five who ‘disappeared’ for half an hour each time they crossed the immigration points. I wondered if they were delayed because they could not help dancing around the plastic trees at the immigration centres.
After the 7.5-hour road trip, we arrived in Mersing at 2.30 pm, to see the hourly ferry speed off from the jetty. We bought tickets for the 3.30 pm ferry but the boat came half an hour late. As the ferry sped off, we thought we had left all the bad luck behind. On the way to Tioman, the ferry broke down. Our boatman tried to repair the engine and watching him shake his head as he was fiddling with it did not reassure any of us. The sea was choppy and people were throwing up. We were told that there was no SOS radio system on the boat and our mobile phones were not receiving any signals…
We finally arrived at Tioman at 7pm. Thankfully, what followed was two days of great weather and great dives. Satisfied and relieved… until we met the same Indian family on the coach on our way back to Singapore!
Well, at least I had made it back to Singapore in one piece to write this report. I need another holiday to recover from this one.
Put off writing this report for so long because it was quite terrifying even recounting the events. Getting stuck in a broken-down boat in the middle of the sea would certainly not be anyone’s idea of fun.
The trip seemed jinxed from the start. Four of the passengers of the coach we were taking to Mersing came half an hour late. They were a Malay family of Pak, Ma and two girls. Usually, half an hour would be no big deal but this time, the traffic jam on the Causeway would worsen the later we were. It was a Good Friday long weekend and scores of Singaporeans were driving up to Malaysia for a holiday. Obnoxious Pak was unapologetic about being late and audaciously demanded for other passengers to make space for his family to sit together. After getting his way, he was still unsatisfied and grumbled throughout the entire journey.
A usual half-hour trip across the immigration points of Singapore and Malaysia stretched to an incredible 4 hours, in part contributed by a noisy Indian family of five who ‘disappeared’ for half an hour each time they crossed the immigration points. I wondered if they were delayed because they could not help dancing around the plastic trees at the immigration centres.
After the 7.5-hour road trip, we arrived in Mersing at 2.30 pm, to see the hourly ferry speed off from the jetty. We bought tickets for the 3.30 pm ferry but the boat came half an hour late. As the ferry sped off, we thought we had left all the bad luck behind. On the way to Tioman, the ferry broke down. Our boatman tried to repair the engine and watching him shake his head as he was fiddling with it did not reassure any of us. The sea was choppy and people were throwing up. We were told that there was no SOS radio system on the boat and our mobile phones were not receiving any signals…
We finally arrived at Tioman at 7pm. Thankfully, what followed was two days of great weather and great dives. Satisfied and relieved… until we met the same Indian family on the coach on our way back to Singapore!
Well, at least I had made it back to Singapore in one piece to write this report. I need another holiday to recover from this one.
posted by nan at 4:22 PM
2 Comments:
wo wo wo!!! Sound like great fun though! U mean the indian family was not with the group during this whole trip???
anyway, such things happened everytime lah... Most of the time, things just won't turn up as what you expected... But tat's what make everything interesting mah.. If not for such incidents, you won't have such interesting things to write abt then! Yahahhahahaaaaaaa!!!
seow ah.... how can 12hr road trip be fun?.....
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