With my passport renewal application safely submitted to the US Embassy in Malaysia, I could finally relax. The processing time was expected to be about 2 weeks and I had an apartment in Kuala Lumpur booked for the first few days. Luckily, I had some friends coming to town so the timing worked out well.
A few months earlier, I met Kai, Tam, and Anna during my first trip to Tioman Island. Kai lives in Kuala Lumpur and I reached out to her once I found out I would be staying in the city. Coincidentally, Tam and Anna were on their way back to Kuala Lumpur from Tioman Island. Tam was passing through on his way to a job site and Anna was scheduled to fly out the next day, back to Germany. Anna happened to need a place to stay for the night, so I offered up my apartment and we all made plans to go out to dinner for a mini Tioman reunion.
Kai picked us all up and we settled on Japanese food for dinner. After the crazy last 48 hours, sitting down with familiar faces for a good meal was exactly what I needed. We spent the night talking, telling stories, and catching up then went back to Kai’s house to share a bottle of wine while talking through different murder scenarios. Yes, you read that right!
Kai has become one of my most interesting and inspirational friends and you’ll hear more about her in the coming blogs. She is Chinese Malay and a single mom of two pre-teen boys, having gotten divorced several years ago. During the pandemic, she began looking for an alternative form of income and discovered that self-publishing books on Amazon could be profitable. So, she began writing romance novels and has published over 50 books in the last three years! She was in the middle of trying to finish off a series and needed inspiration on how to kill off a few of her characters so that night, Tam, Anna, and I sat and talked about different murder scenarios over a couple glasses of wine.
The next day Anna and I went out to breakfast then she caught a ride to the airport and I was left deciding what I should do for the next two weeks, waiting for my new passport. I had been meaning to get my rescue diver certification for some time and began looking into places that offered PADI courses. Coincidentally, Tioman Island is one of the only places to go diving in Malaysia so I messaged Karim who was still living at the closed resort there.
I spent the next few days in Kuala Lumpur doing computer stuff then hopped on the bus, across the country, to the port town of Mersing. Karim arranged for me to stay at a friend’s hostel that night and I took the ferry to my favorite little town of Mukut the next morning. Halfway through the ferry ride, I received an email from the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, informing me that my passport was ready for pickup, over a week early! I had a funny feeling that this might happen…
I briefly contemplated staying on the ferry until it returned to the mainland then catching another 6-hour bus back to Kuala Lumpur, picking up my passport, then booking the first flight back to Indonesia to meet back up with SV Kismet. The reality was, I had missed out on all the diving in Komodo and Kevin was already on his way to Bali. Rushing back to Indonesia wasn’t going to benefit me in any way and would likely leave me stranded, waiting for Kevin in some port town. If this trip has taught me anything, it’s to stop making rushed decisions and trust the process.
I arrived at the dock and immediately ran into Din, the manager of SiMukut Place where the girls and I painted the dragon mural two months before. He was surprised and happy to see me, insisting on giving me a ride on his scooter to the restaurant, where I was scheduled to meet Karim. As we motored past the line of tourist walking the dock, I secretly felt cool showing I wasn’t just a common tourist here, I had local connections.
I had completely forgotten it was Friday and Karim briefly stopped by on his way to pray at the mosque but said I was welcome to wait for him to come back or I could find my way to Bagus Place, a 40-minute walk. As I sat eating lunch, I overheard a young English woman talking to a tourist family about arranging a boat to take them to the resort next to Bagus. I mentioned I was also looking to head that way and they invited me to share the boat, what luck!
The woman introduced herself as Beth and mentioned that she had initially come to Tioman Island for a workaway but it didn’t work out so she had been living with some locals before starting university in Australia in the coming weeks. She joined us on the trip to Bagus then we spent the afternoon swimming off the dock and chatting. It had only been two months since my last visit and I was shocked to see that two of the dock piers were missing, having been taken out by a boat that got loose from its mooring. It seemed the resort was degrading more and more quickly.
Eventually, Karim returned along with one of his friends whom I had met before, Amer. Although I had hardly interacted with him on my previous trips since his English wasn’t great, Amer greeted me and knew my name, asking if I brought my drone with me and mentioned that he loved the mural we painted. Although it may seem like an insignificant interaction, I was flattered to feel like I had people here who recognized me and seemed genuinely excited to have me around.
I spent the weekend at Bagus with Karim and some of his friends visiting from out of town. The dynamic was a bit different this time around and I felt like the odd person out, which, in hindsight, I was. Instead of being here with Candice and some of the other girls, I was the only one, and instead of speaking English around the dinner table, it was Bahasa. During the day, I spent the time journaling and meditating in the forest, at one of the old houses farther up into the trees. I sat for hours, listening as the light rain washed the forest and feeling grateful for having found this special place.
By Monday, I was scheduled to start my PADI rescue diver course on another part of the island. I went out to breakfast with Karim and some of his friends in town and was flattered that one of them picked up my tab for food and coffee. Then, another friend offered to give me a ride on his boat to the main town, where my course was located. Once again, I was touched by the generosity of these people that I had only briefly met but seemed to value my presence with them.
I hopped in the small boat with my things and we motored about 30 minutes to the main town on the island, Tekek. Karim’s friend dropped me off in front of the dive shop and I made my way to the office. I met the owner, two young guys doing their divemaster training, and my instructor, Mukshin. The cost of the course included accommodation in one of their dorm rooms but since I was taking the course during the week, I was the only client and had the entire room to myself. I spent the rest of the day working through the online training modules.
The following days were a routine of learning skills then performing them on land, then in the water. I learned different rescue scenarios, basic first aid, and CPR and was able to finish the course in just a couple of days. I also added in a day of fun diving but it was hard to compare the reefs to what I had just experienced in Raja Ampat. I was also reminded why I didn’t want to become a dive master or instructor. Diving with a large, primarily inexperienced group was chaotic and frustrating especially because we had to end the dive early because someone decided to surface.
During my last day on the island, I met a group of girls planning to head back to Kuala Lumpur on the same day as me. We coordinated travel plans together and sat next to each other on the ferry back to Mersing. We sat down for lunch near the ferry terminal and I was completely flattered, once again, that the girls paid for my food without even asking. They just seemed excited to have a new American friend and asked me a few questions about what is it like to live in the US. I think they also felt a certain responsibility for me, making sure that I felt welcome and safe to enjoy their country.
The girls even offered to buy my bus ticket but I assured them that I already had the bus app downloaded and ticket purchased. As we sat eating, I was surprised to see Tam and the owner of the hostel where I had stayed. I chatted with them for a while before returning to the table with the girls, who joked that seemed to be more of a local than they were.
The 6-hour bus ride back to the city was long but I talked with the girls and we shared some gas station snacks along the way. Once we arrived back in the city, the girls made sure I knew exactly how to get where I was going before they left me. This surprise trip to Malaysia filled my heart with gratitude for all of these wonderful people I met or reunited with. People who have no responsibility to help me but genuinely want to and what a great feeling that is, to feel a sense of connection and community.
