Private Beach Party @ Tioman

There will be some pictures about Tioman on facebook and picasa.

The idea of the trip was to organize cheap trip to Tioman, Malaysia for a vast number of exchange students to get to know each other and form some sort of cross nationality groups. So we organized a three days and two nights trip to Tioman with only 150S$ per head, in the end that included travel costs back and forth, accommodation for both nights and a BBQ/grill beach party with all you can drink alcohol for both saturday and sunday. For some of you who might not know, Pulau Tioman is one of the duty-free islands in Malaysia, so the alcohol there was cheap compared to Singapore and Europe.

It was a lot of work to organize this trip. We posted the the brief trip information on three different Facebook groups to get everyones attention, but for convenience we only used one group to gather all the registrations and contacts. The trip was success even before it started, we had around 180 attendees but we only could take 60.

So we had to do some first-come-first-serve based selecting and also some male/female ratio and nationality balancing. After couple of work filled days and some sleepless nights we managed to get the group together. A lot of the work was caused due to the last minute cancellations and new recruiting and money collecting.

The trip started at 5am. For the trip we had ordered a rental bus to take us directly from UTown at NUS to ferry termimal in Mersing, Malaysia. The ride from our pick up point at UTown through the customs of Singapore and Malaysia took around 3hours. Of course everything didn't go as planned, one girl and one guy had forgotten or lost their disembarkation card which allows them to leave from the country. They had at least 10-15 minutes sit down interrogation beside the passport booth and after that they were taken to the interrogation room. After total time of over 30min and lots of answered questions later the unlucky pair was allowed to leave the country without the disembarkation card. The trip continued through the no-man lands to Malaysian customs and the apply for the free quick visa went without annoyances.

Around 8am we reached the Mersing and had a good one hour for the breakfast, some of the hungriest ones just settled with a "special burger" found from a small grill booth beside the ferry terminal while the others just waited or went for a breakfast into a nearby foodcourt.

The ferry left the port around 10am, we had asked from the ferry company if they can drive us directly to the other side of Tioman, to the Juara Mutiara beach, where our resort was located. The whole ferry was filled from our 60 person group so they agreed to our terms. To be honest, we had been scaring everyone about the boat trip cause of our previous ferry experience from Langkawi to Penang. This ride was calm and smooth, no jumping or puking even close by. Half of the group tried to rest, sleep and chill inside the ship and the other half watched the sceneries from the rear deck of the boat. The ride to other side of the Tioman was about two hours.

We reached the Tioman around noon, we arrived directly to the correct side of the island, right to the shore of our own resort, Juara Mutiara Beach Resort. We had booked the whole resort village, around 20 air-con 2 to 3 person beach apartments. After we had received and divided the keys everyone had free time to do what ever they wanted until the 7pm. That was the time we had arranged the BBQ/beach party to start. Some of the group hit the beach, others decided to walk a bit in the jungle and some wanted to rest the trip stress away. As a organizer I had a "special" room with my singaporean friend. Actually it was just the same room but there was a bathtub in the bathroom. We felt so overwhelmingly special... One could have not used it nor would have wanted to use it! The water from the shower was pouring so slowly that the it would have taken at least an hour to fill the tub and further more the bathtub didn't look so good to be honest. Still in the end, we felt special.



Booze trip was about to begin. We gathered a car full of volunteers to join us for a rental car trip over the mountain to the other side of the Tioman island. Even though the island is small, the ride across it took nearly 30 minutes due to the steep mountain road. The road was so narrow and fluctuating. The driver honked the horn before every corner to warn the inclosing vehicles. Luckily it had been cement covered now. Local friend of mine told that previously on a one trip a couple of years ago they had to push the car over the mountain due to rain caused mud floods. On the other side of the island we found the so called "capital" of Tioman. Actually it was a quite a small beachside tourist village. We had a nice car ride through the jungle and over the middle mountain of Tioman to the other side. When we got over the mountain and started to head down on to the other side, the view was just breathtaking. There we saw this huge blue lagoon with a sandy shore so white that it almost was painful for eyes to gaze upon it. The view from the mountain was just so bright. All across the shore there were small cabins and shops spread widely. When we arrived to the beach, at first we hit the duty-free shop for the beach party freeflow drinks and mixers. That was quite a big job actually.

The shopping list for the freeflow was (not include mixers or snacks etc.):
Smirnoff Blue Label 1.0l x12
Skyy Vodka 1.0l x5
Bacardi Razz 1.0l x2
Bacardi Limon 1.0l x2
Bacardi Carta Blanca 1.0l x2
Absolut Raspberry 1.0l x2
Barton gin 1.0l x7
Bombay Sapphire Gin 1.0l x1
Captain Morgan Spiced 1.0l x4
Jose Cuervo Blanco Tequila 1.0l x3
Jagermeister 1.0l x2
Cruzan Banana 1.0l x1
El Picu Mojito 0.7l x1
El Picu Caipiranha Lime 0.7l x1
El Picu Margarita Strawberry 0.7l x1
Changi Beer 24x0.33l x 3
Jaz Beer 24x0.33l x 2
Tiger Beer 24x0.33l x 5



After the whole shopping thing we decided to go for a nice lunch, we ordered almost everything from the diner and shared it. That was one of the best meals. The trip back to the Juara Mutiara beach, the only beach on the other side of the island went well. There we unloaded the truck to our apartment and headed to check out our upcoming beach party shack. The shack looked warm and welcoming, it was good for us.

Before the party we headed to chill out in the water and beach. Played some volleyball and some of us went jumping from the pier to the ocean. And of course, what else can I do than backflips! We were jumping from the far end of the pier so we were able to use the stairs meant for boats to unload people to clime up back to the pier. The underwater part of the stairs were covered with seashells stuck to the cement. Oh, boy those were sharp and and of course I cut my big toe from two different places, but I didn't worry about that back then.

The beach was really nice, although it was a lot different than the one in Langkawi where you could easily walk 500 meters from the shore. Here the shore was a bit steep and you could walk only about 50 meters, more or less. Beside the shack by the shore were two chained monkeys, I actually felt a bit sad for them. They were friendly and nice. At some point the owner decided to give us a show and she took the monkeys out of the chains and took them for a swim. The monkeys were so scared that they crawled and jumped to sat on the top of the owners head. And by the time I was holding keys and locks to the monkeys chains, I should have released them, but I don't think they would have survived cause they were so used to have some people around.

By the beach we also played some volleyball and around 6pm we headed back to our condos. Everybody started to gather around 7pm close to our apartment, anxious about the upcoming party. No one knew what to expect, but in the end everyone knew that we were party planners to be reckoned with.

Around 7.15pm we told everyone to start heading to the shack and that we'll rent a moped with a side van to get all the booze there. The ride arrived at 7.30pm, but at the same minute a monsoon rain started to pour heavily upon us, it was quite a show with some lightnings and strong whirlwinds!

In the end around 8pm we decided to take our shirts off and just ride the damn moped there despite the rain! Everyone was already there eating and loving the BBQ grill buffet. After I had gotten all the booze inside and organized the rest of the evening I could relax for a second and start to enjoy the night with the rest of the group. The food was good, there was some fried chicken, beef, noodles, rice, sweet and sour chicken, eggs, shrimps and all sort of delicacy. We partied by the shack doing rounds of tequila and jager shots and all crazy drinks till 1am and then tidied the place up a bit and headed to continue the party beside our beachside condos where we partied until sunrise around 7am.

On sunday I woke up around 11am, I didn't sleep so much but I still felt refreshed. The day started with a lovely breakfast brunch with some good morning after punch. We had bought some special bottles for this reason, the banana rum, mojito, caipiranha and margarita. Thats the way to start a day!

After breakfast everyone started to do different activities, some chilled by the beach while others went to do some snorkeling or hiking in the hills towards waterfalls. Actually to the waterfalls the trip should have been around 4-5hours back and forth, but no one found it, even though it took 5hours from them!

My decision was to hangout by the beach with a smaller group. There we played some sports like frisbee and volleyball, also played catch with this tiny soft ball that bounces a great deal from the surface of the water if you throw it in the right angle. It was quite cool and it needed some reflexes to catch it!

The freeflow and cost included beach party was supposed to be only on the first night, but we couldn't finish everything over one night. Around 4pm to 5pm when we were checking the budget we realized that we still had some money left. We asked from our resort could they organize buffet for us for the evening with that much money and they agreed. Around 8pm we had our second buffet party, the food was even better than the first night. We had shrimps, fried chicken, sweet and sour chicken, calamari, sausages, rise, fries and fruits etc.

Around 9.30pm everyone was full, but we still decided to get all the leftovers with us to the beach party for finger foods. The beach party was awesome, even though on first night there was around 80 people partying from NUS (even though our group size was only 60) we allowed them to party with us, just said to bring their own foods and drinks. We didn't want them to drink our payed drinks and foods for free, but still they did. At the second night party there was at least 100 partier by the shore. It was just whack. I had my laptop by the beach blowing some mainstream spotify music through a pair of speakers that I had borrowed from my South-African roommate. The owner of the resort was very friendly and even without asking he turned on the lights for us on the beach for us to enjoy the beach and the party. There I also made my Tioman famous drink called Juhana Juice, the secret ingredients were Bacardi Razz, Smirnoff Blue Label, sprite, half a lime squeezed in and a slice of lime on top! Thats just best beach drink ever!

At some point people just started to gather in the further end of the pier and someone shouted that the locals had caught a shark. Quite a big group of us went to see it, there it actually was, a one meter long shark. I hugged and kissed the shark! One of my norwegians friends wanted to do some fishing by the pier also at the same time and he caught a squid with his first throw! The squid was so nasty and I did one indescribable think, I put half of the squid in to my mouth while hanging it upside down, I'll just regret that, it didn't felt or look so cool afterwards! There was also this weird incident but I took care of it with a the locals. One guy that no one knew but was chilling and drinking in our party decided to steal the shark and run with it to the shore. I was running with the local guy who was in charge of the fish to recover it back. The guy just didn't realize anything, he couldn't comprehend that if he steals someone else's shark it's not that cool. I just hoped that we as organizer weren't the ones to be blamed, but in the end I was able to handle the situation with the local and retrieve the shark to its rightful owners. I think the beach party lasted till 4am, then we cleaned the beach and headed back 30meters to our condos and continued partying there until 8am or so.

Around 12pm I woke up and had a good strong breakfast with friends, actually I think it could have had been called already a lunch. We had couple of hours left to chill out and clean the place up. After 1pm we started to gather up and left to the pier to take a group photo. After the group photo, when the ferry was already arriving I decided to do the last backflip from the pier, everyone was watching and filming it and it felt nice. Actually it was quite a perfect one.

The ferry ride back was a bit longer and it took nearly 3hours and we stopped couple of times the get more people on. This ferry was bigger, at least twice the capacity of the first one. The ride back was also smooth, no roller coasters this time either. Around 5pm we started to head back to Singapore customs from Mersing ferry terminal. In the middle of the way we stopped to this huge chinese dining mall. At first we thought that this will be expensive lunch but when we got the menus it seemed nice. It was about 160RM for a 8 course meal for the whole table and it was around 8persons per table. So it really was nothing compared to what we got to eat. We had soup, fish, shrimps, chicken, pork, vegetables, fruits etc. and we couldn't finish it all, it was just amazing!

The ride back went fast, I don't know about the others but for me it was easy cause I'm a good sleeper. We cleared the customs and got back to Singapore around 11pm on monday just nicely before the National day of Singapore on tuesday.