Rawa

is pretty... Come visit!  

Some pics here... more pics (from me) to come.  http://www.malaysia-islands.com/html/rawa/beach/main.shtml

I spent the day getting up at 5am, getting a bus from Singapore to Mersing at 6:30am...40 mins after getting on the bus, we got off the bus and walked to customs to exit singapore.  We got back on the bus and 10 mins later, we walked to customs to enter Malaysia.  Why do you have walk across the border??

We got to Mersing at 9:30 and found out that all the hotels for rawa (there are 2 owned by rival siblings in a sultanate?) were fully booked.   The next ferry to Tioman was at 3:30pm and this became 5:00pm and eventually 8:00pm by the time I went to the ATM and had Ringgits.  Luckily, we checked back with Rawa and some people had not shown up so we were on our way on our little speedboat to Rawa..

The way to get to the boat was...get on a jetty, walk an unsecured plank to a boat carrying 2x4s, cross that boat, go to the next boat, then cross that boat again and walk onto the actual speedboat.  All in the pouring rain.  Awesome.  No seriously.  The scene was something I'd only really recognized from movies abt the war in Vietnam.  

Then, we realized that it was low tide so actually, our motors were trudging up mud.  Our boat went very very slowly for the next 20 mins which was a little disconcerting bc we were really low to the water and it was pouring outside...but eventually we found some deep water.  

We arrived in Rawa and the story gets more typical: lunch, suntanning on a pristine beach, wading in water (with corals), looking at little fishies (I think I saw Dory!), taking a looong nap in a hammock secured by 2 palm trees, looking at peacocks fighting chickens, "hiking" to the top of the island and around the island, dinner, cards, ping pong. 

There are a LOT of Americans here.  I think about 80% of the people here are american and the other 20% is taken up by one huge japanese family and us.  Surprising considering this is such a small island and is supposed to be a resort island for people in singapore?  Most of the people I meet in Singapore are British or Australian.  

Tomorrow: breakfast, kayaking, lunch then leaving for singapore again. 

I think a one day trip was actually perfect for Rawa... the only thing we didn't do was diving.. and I don't think my mom would really have been up for that.

Oh, other interesting fact.  Rawa is a private island owned by a sultanate or founded by one and that sultanate also started Bintan, the main Singaporean getaway resort island!  I wish I were part of a sultanate and could find and own these islands...though then I'd have to fight the Portuguese...

New Gphone app idea: image recognition for fish and bird matching?