Survivor! Who you outwit, outlast and outwin!
Survivor Island Jetty
Pulau Tiga (the Reality TV Show Survivor is shot here) is about 90 minutes driving from KK town. The journey is pleasant, as I am accompanied by my beloved gang and 3 lovely and handsome friends from Hong Kong. We took a ferry to cross a river, followed by 30 minutes boat ride. The sea is beautiful, clear sky (I pray for good weather) and nice breeze. Soon, we saw the jetty. The island is pretty simple, but nice. I like it. We were greeted with cool juice and lunch. Nothing spectacular about the food, in fact it is kinda sucks. We checked in our chalet, and it is equipped with an air-con with 2 beds, and private bathroom. It is the best accommodation we had so far, since we usually stay at backpacker lodge or hostel. We stay at Pulau Tige Resort.
The 1st stop is mud volcano. Frankly I am not very enthusiastic about this tour, I mean, what can be so great about dipping yourself in mud? It is about 20 minutes walk into the jungle before we saw a few pool of mud. At first, Christine's leg got stuck in some pretty dry mud, and she is shouting as it is pretty hard to move around, and funny. After which, the rest got themselves into the real mud pool, the wet pool, while I continue recording with my DV. It is funny to see how they react to the pool. At 1st they are pretty cautious, den someone started to float on the mud and swim around. People start putting mud on their face and dip their hair in mud, and rubbing mud on each other, making mud-man. The entire thing is very fun and memorable, and we take lots of photos and video. We enjoy ourselves in the warm mud, and it is fun and relaxing. Looking up the sky while floating is like Nirvana for a moment (just kidding!). We steal some mud for facial (shhhh!). Then, a large group of people jump in and not only disturbs our peace, but force all the mud out of the pool. The pool maximum can fit 20 person at a time, shoulder to shoulder. We get ourselves up and get our stuff, walk through the jungle bare-footed in mud-man form back to the beach. It is pretty scary for the by-passer if they are new here. So do a mud sunbaths for a few minutes before jumping into the water to clean ourselves. Yup, really need to get off a lot of mud. We had our tea break and some volleyball after that. I had a serious game of volleyball with a bunch of doctor having conference there, and it is pretty fun. I like volleyball, though not very good at it during school. After a few games, the crowd started to gather. Michelle taught us how to swim there, and I learnt some very basic of freestyle. Yup, what a fruitful day, and I started to enjoy swimming (maybe could start taking lesson from her every week).
Entrance to the Mud Volcano. It is rumoured that the Director's Lodge is a scary place.
Warm muddy bath! Ahhh!
Mud-Man Transformation Completed
At night after dinner, we all gathered at Mei Ru's room for card games. Alan and our new Hong Kong friends join us as well. Christine suggested to play a simple observation game while we are waiting for the others arrive. Following is the rule of them game:
1. She would use her hand to point (shoot) randomly at different person.
2. In the end, someone would die (being shot to death), and we must guess who actually died.
A short game ends up being the longest game for the entire night. This is an observation game which require careful pattern recognition and probability elimination, and we shouldn't confine our boundary and need to think out of the problem box. It is quite a challenging game, and I think it is good for the mind. Christine is good at organising this kind of game, as she is after all a social worker for the school. There are a lot of faces with lost expression, some are extremely curious to find the answer while others just feel sleepy. Joanne and Terrence is moderate player, meaning they are calm and curiosity is moderate. Mei Ru and Michelle are absolutely blur and willing to give up easily if without further motivation. Alan is a extremely curious cat, an active person with rich emotion and expression (maybe quite a similar characteristic with Christine). I think Chee Hong and I are more similar: introvert, observant, logical and must solve the game. I solve it within 20 minutes, as I had some basic in playing similar game, which require observation and thinking out of the box. I think Mei Ru solved it last, as she had totally lost interest and almost fall asleep. We played another 2 similar game for the entire night. It was a superb fun night, with a lot of laughter and many many different facial expression on everyone. If observed carefully, it really show the characteristic of each individual. Too bad I couldn't see myself in the game; else I could understand myself betta. Alan and the Hong Kong friends left earlier, probably because Alan and Joanne felt sick. We continues with about 2 hours of Choh Tai D (锄大D) before catching our sleep.
Alan & Christine during the game session at night.
The next day we went to the Snake Island. Nothing much there, except the guide catch an extremely poisonous snake and allow us to take picture of it. Michelle is extremely afraid of creepy creatures. It is said that we would die within 10 seconds if bitten by the snake. The one we saw had blue and black stripe. We took quite a lot of photo there, as the scenery is beautiful. Joanne and Terrence didn't join us, as Joanne is sick. Poor thing. The next stop is the Desert Island, with not a single green plant on it. The entire island is a long white sandy beach, absolutely breathtaking. It is said that the island would never be covered by water. Next, they drop us for snorkelling in the middle of the sea. To me it is pretty scary, even with the life jacket on. But once I am in the water floating, then everything is just fine. Some basic learning skill I learned from Michelle yesterday proved to be very useful. Mei Ru panicked, probably due to the deep water and the inability to float properly and lift her head up. We could see the seabed properly, but most of the coral is grey in colour (dead coral). There isn't much fishes either, so 2 thumbs down for the view. We went back to Survivor Island for lunch, den we proceed with some snorkelling again near the beach. There are more corals here, but many of them are dead as well. Actually corals are pretty colourful; it would be a magnificent view if there are more of them. According to Mei Ru and Chee Hong, corals at Pulau Redang are much better. I think is saw a dozen of different corals and fishes, better than nothing.
Michelle with poisonous snake (the expression of smile+scary in one)
My model-look photo taken by Christine at Snake Island
The 3 pretty gals at Desert Island.
Desert Island beach view
After some swim, we have to clean ourselves and leave the island. Survivor Island is a fun place and we could have stayed there for 2 days instead of 1. We went back to Lucy's home in KK for the night, while Christine and friends stay the night at Shangri-La Hotel.
Breakfast at Lucy's home
Lucy & Mimi
We meet up for breakfast again the next day at Museum Kopitiam before taking our flight home. It is nice to know some overseas friends, as I only have friends in Thailand and Singapore. Terrence is a designer (commercial packaging), while Joanne do international sales of glasses (they are the manufacturers for branded and customised glasses). We took a lot of photo and video at the World War II cafe. We each bid goodbye to each other and left with heavy hearts. The holiday had ended, and good friends are leaving as well. After which, we took Air Asia flight back to KL. The End.
Museum Kopitiam: Lest We Forget
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