A few people have been asking when I am going to update my picture pages well the answer is as soon as I can find a place to Transfer my photos from Compact Flash to CD-rom. So could be today could be next week but I will let you know when it's done.

Tioman Island
Well after six days of swimming, sun bathing and terribly little else I have dragged myself away from the friendly shores of Tioman Island.
In spite of previous remarks that I would do a Batik course it never eventuated, they had run out of materials! So Danny will have to wait for his T-Shirt until I come across some other opportunity.
This morning I hopped on a ferry that managed to take four hours to get back to Mersing. It had only taken me an hour or so by speed boat to get there. Never mind it's not as if I am in a hurry.
Oh by the way if you are afraid of Lizards you won't like the island. I had a monitor lizard of more then a meter long living under my beach hut.

Tioman Island
Hi folks, I am currently on Tioman Island of the west coast of Malaysia where I anticipate to be for the next five or six days. The weather is great the sea sparkling blue and I have nice cottage right on the beach. Ahh.... live is good.
In order to keep you all up to date I better give you a rundown of where I've been so far though.
Singapore to Pengerang
In order to try another route from Singapore to Malaysia I decided to take a bumboat from Changi on the eastern tip of Singapore to Pengerang in Malaysia. As it is that part of it was relatively straight forward and the boat trip itself takes about 45 minutes. However when I got there I found out that Pengerang exists of nothing more then a wharf and a customs office. What to do next? Luckily I had struck up a conversation with to Singaporeans who told me that they were going for a cycle ride to Desaru and who had made this trip before. So the solution is to share a taxi between the three of us to the next town where I plan to stay if there are any hotels just to have a bit of nosy around and they will hire bikes for their trip. All that is well ends well and I find a hotel and have a pleasant lunch with the two cyclists after which I have a bit of wonder through the neighborhood. Nothing earth shattering to be found but a nice little kampung all the same.
Desaru
Right next day I take another taxi this time to Desaru. The taxi driver drops of in front of this huge resort hotel and I decide what the heck might as well check out the price. OK so it's expensive(RM150 per night) but they've a gorgeous golden sand beach a swimming pool with waterfall and water slide and beautifully manicured gardens so yeah I stayed for the night.
Spend most of the day alternating between the beach and the swimming pool with the occasional stop in one of there restaurants. I did towards the end of the day rouse myself enough to walk down the beach and check out the wreck of a fishing boat and while going there saw this really cute jelly fish in one of the tidal pools. Now normally these beasts just wash up as slimy blobs on the beach but this one was alive and well and quite an amazing site to watch.
Kota Tingi
Another day another log distance taxi this time inland to Kota Tingi. Again this place isn't on the tourist circuit u I ad read somewhere that there is an interesting waterfall nearby. So after dropping my back pack in an hotel I went of in search of the falls. As it turned out they are nice enough but quite heavily developed with food stalls all around them and the stream trained into a number of swimming holes. Still the water was cool and I know worse ways of spending the day.
Tioman
Well that's where I am now I am staying at a place known as ABC and to update this blog I actually had to walk over to Ketek which is on the next bay. This place is close to paradise and I don't know when I am going to leave. I want to go and do a snorkeling trip one of these days as well as trying my hand a batik making as you see I am really busy Catch a next time people.

Got up early this morning and found a little Indian restaurant that had the most divine Masala Dosa. You know you are in Asia when you can get the real thing by just walking down the road and picking what looks like a decent restaurant and getting a dosa and coffee.
After that feast I took a combination of subway and bus to the Bukit Timah nature reserve. I had been promising myself for some time now that I would go there and climb Singapore's highest mountain, all 163 meters of it. In spite of it's lack of altitude it is however quite a pleasant jungle area and apparently one of the last unlogged forests on the island. After making it to the top I decided to do a bit of off track wandering and spend the next few hours weaving past little streams and trough various forms of jungle growth including rattan, ouch.. From time to time it rained on me so I was rather pleased with my last minute purchase of a waterproof container for my camera. Oh by the way there are supposed the large a number of monkeys in the reserve but the only animals I saw were some butterflies and a lone squirrel.
It was close to two in the afternoon before I made it back to town and to celebrate me conquering the mountain and to cool down I had an Ice Kachang in the airconditioned environs of one of the Orchard road shopping centers. Some time later I made it back to y hotel had a shower and a change of clothing before doing an early dinner and setting of for the museum of Asian civilizations. For those interested in cultural museums I can heartily recommend it.
Well it's 9.30pm local time and I am going to watch some TV and get some sleep, tomorrow I am of to Malaysia

The flights to Singapore went pretty smooth, just the way I like them, the only bottleneck was at Auckland immigration where hundreds of people were queuing to get through but even so that took only about twenty minutes.
Emirates lived up to their reputation, service was good, the food edible and as they have separate inseat monitors for everyone I could select my own movie. So I caught up on Matrix Revolutions which I had failed to see when it was in the cinema and in spite of the critics panning it I quite enjoyed it. On the Brisbane leg I managed to sleep for a few hours so by the time we arrived in Singapore I was quite well rested. However as it was only two in the morning I did curl up in a corner of the airport and got some rest.
At around six in the morning I decide enough is enough and had wash and a shave at one of the hand basins in the public toilets, got myself a black coffee and some toast and hopped on the MRT to Paya Lebar station.
Now Paya Lebar is about halfway between town and the airport in the Geilang district of Singapore this is a mainly Malaysian part of town and if You keep on following Geaylang road you eventually end up in down town Singapore. So that's just what I did.
There are plenty of shophouses and small coffee shops to investigate the odd temple here and there and I even got called at by a few of the prostitutes that apparently frequent this part of town. I hope they look better at night or they won't get many clients though.
All in all it took me almost three and a half hours before I had walked to my hotel where after a shower a rest and abut two liters of water I am writing this. I am feeling a little peckish so I guess I am going to find myself some lunch now.