Malaysian Peninsula Chapter 1 Malaysian Peninsula Chapter 1 Tioman April 19-22 by Eric W e decided to get a boat out of Singapore to the island of Tioman because Kris and Anne had heard Tioman was great and because we wanted to avoid riding out of Singapore and through Johor Bahru. The ferry was a great way to skip the traffic nightmare. Only about 10 or 15 other people rode the ferry with us. No large waves disturbed the South China Sea so the ride was smooth. We arrived in about 4.5 hours, then had to wait another 15 minutes while the crew found an immigration guy to stamp our passports and let us into Malaysia.
Tioman island has only two kilometers of roads.
Tall, jagged, jungle-covered mountains make road building very difficult. And since everyone lives on the coast, most transportation is by boat. We rode our bikes down the two kilometers of road, past the airport. The path goes over a large promontory that connects Tioman's southwest bay with its northwest bay, Air Batang. Our boat had landed at the southern bay, but we wanted to stay in the northern bay, because that's where all the cheap places were.