Memories...
Thursday, June 21, 2007
BACK FROM TIOMAN - THE BIG FISH ENCOUNTER
Yeah i m back from tioman island since Mondae evening. I last visited there in 1999, almost 8 years ago wow. Time flies man. Anyway e water over there now still rocks at certain parts of the island, but i must say its definitely not as pure or clear as compared to the past. And yes, there are much less of those irritating sea cucumbers which i swear flooded the entire seabed 8 years ago!!
Actually, there were more disappointments during the trip than highs. 1st of all, the room which me and Princess Shuang Er got on the 1st dae at Salang Beach Resort was a total crap one! While its true that we booked kinda last min and thus ended up getting the last available room, but it was really really bad. Shouldnt elaborate more hah! Thankfully when we switch rooms on e 2nd dae to the air-conditioned one, it was 10 times better.
2ndly, the food overall, was well disappointing. Wasnt really special and quality was really bad for some of the stuff we ate. Me and Princess Shuang Er both swear that bukit timah al zahar food n drinks are so much better!
3rdly, as expected actually, the prices of the shirts/ shorts there increased liao, due to the influx of tourists. What was disappointing to me is that there were seriously v few Tioman shirts that look unique or nice. Really! I rem 8 years ago i bought this really colourful n exotic shirt as a souvenir. Didnt really feel like buying 1 this time round. haha, but ended up the couple shirts we bought were too small for me!! And i look like a retard squeezing into a mini-shirt bah! Thus, Princess Shuang Er gets to keep 2 shirts in e end haha. =p
Finally, thank heavens that Salang is the more happening area on Tioman at night. There were a few pubs and i must comment that the beer and alcohol there is cheap man haha! But wasnt much else n most of the restaurants n pubs also close by midnight.
Well, n certainly 1 of the major highlights of the trip was seeing this freaking big fish while snorkelling in the shallow waters near to our beach la!! Basket i got a real shock when i saw it. It was freaking huge and look freaking wierd! At least 1m long and blue in colour! I rem Princess Shuang Er was swimming beside me and ya noe, while snorkelling most of the time u only see small fishes and corals there underwater. So really i was stunned when i saw the fish and i tot i was seeing things! But i immediately surfaced and quickly dragged Princess Shuang Er and swimmed asap away ahha!
She didnt see the big fish n was clamouring to see it, while i was like "Holy shit! Let's get out of here quick before the big fish decides to grab a bite of us n see how we taste like." After we were in safe waters, i kept analysing and discussing with her whether i could have seen things. Manz, at that point of time, i felt like those kinda chaps who sighted the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot or UFOs and was trying to convince others what i really saw, and that what i saw was not illusions hahaha!
Yea, and guess what? When i reached back in Singapore and during Arts Camp meeting, i ask lion king the expert diver, whether could it have been eye tricks n described the big freaking fish, n he told me what i saw was a BUMPHEAD PARROTFISH. duh! What in holy smokes was that?! So i went to google and found lotsa pics of it, and most importantly,
I WASNT SEEING THINGS!!!
Apparently this bumphead parrotfish is kinda like a giant luohan, with a bump on its head and can grow up to freaking 1.5 m in length!! Lion king apparently told me that he got witnessed even up till his size wan! Considering that lion king is not v small, u can imagine how big these bumpheads can grow until!
What i researched was that these bumpheads are very gentle creatures, n serve very important eco purposes of generating sand. They are also not exactly very common. haha, which means dear hock here got the honour of sighting a rare sea creature somemore in the shallow waters.
But trust me man, unless u re a seasoned diver, the amatuerish 4th grade snorkellers like u n me, when coming face to face with a 1.5m bumphead just a freaking 1 m distance away from u, u wont stay around to cuddle it man. I mean really, Man have mood swings. Woman have mood swings (10 times worse heh). Dogs have mood swings. Tigers have mood swings. Heck, even camels have mood swings. N lets not forget bout the damn stingray which attacked Steve Irwin, 1 of my most respected Animal Planet activists. Even stingrays have mood swings (cant blame them sometimes, considering how delicious they taste with sambal sauce).
So, whose to say that bumpheads wont have mood swings!!?? And suddenly decide to bite a chunk off u?? Manz..
This episode has served to make me think deep n hard about how shud i prepare myself mentally when i eventually come face to face with the Loch Ness monster Nessie..my childhood dream haha.
