Pulau Tioman - Part 1

Pulau Tioman (Tioman Island) is located in the state of Pahang, Malaysia. Even though I am Pahangite but I haven't been to Tioman Island. As such, I took the opportunity to organize a "baktisiswa" programme in my own state and this was way back in 1983 when I was the MPP-UM (Majlis Perwakilan Pelajar Universiti Malaya) and the President of Pahang Students Society University of Malaya. I saw there is a needs for varsity students to approach the Islanders and provides some form of assistance to them such as educational awareness programme and at the same time exposing the varsity students to the reality of Islanders routine activities. "Wow! this is a massive project and required high financial budget. I wonder if this project could kick-off," I quipped to myself and it was overheard by Zakariah Md Sam who later became the Ex-Officio of the project.

As a Project Director, I drafted the paper work, budget requirement and participant's application form. The university finally gave the green light and approved the paper work. Immediately, I formed a project committee and sub-committee of which comprised of senior and junior varsity students. Juniors involvement in the project was to train and exposed them in organizing big scale project. Eventually they would be taking over as project director or committee head for the next year project. In order to materialise the project, I have to source the project funding. University only provided about one third of the budgeted amount. I want the "baktisiswa" project to be a memorable one to all the participants.

Henceforth, Zakariah and I took time to Tioman Island to meet the Tok Penghulu and other community leaders. From Mersing Jetty, we took a fishermen sampan that could accomodate max. of 6 people. We had missed the Puteri Tioman ferry. They told us by sampan, we could reach our destination in 2 to 4 hours depending on the sea conditions. Without much hesitation, we agreed on the price and continued with our journey. It was a fine day when we started sailing but when at the open sea; it started to be rough with waves as high as 5 feet. Sea water kept pouring into the sampan and the tekong told us to scoop the water otherwise the sampan might be sinking. Sometime we were on top of the waves and minute later at the bottom. It was really scary as I don't know how to swim. We were busied scooping the water and praying hard to Allah that we reach Kg Tekek safely. Finally, we reached Kg Tekek jetty closed to 4 hours in one piece and amazingly we do not suffered any sea sick. I treasured this moment closely to my heart and I have made a promise to myself, "from now onwards I will not use a sampan when sailing in the open sea." We checked in at a chalet operated by Tuan Hj Jumaat, who is also a Ketua Kampong of Kg Tekek. Our meetings with Tok Penghulu & Tok Ketua Kampong went smoothly and all the programmes with the community was agreed upon. Our mission has accomplished. On receipt of the programme confirmation, focus was shifted to fund raising activities and transportation to Tioman.

We wrote to the Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) to provide us with helicopters to transport the participants and organizing committees to Tioman Island. "We are unable to provide helicopters as the fuel consumption is very high. However, we are pleased to inform that MINDEF will provide two battleships to ferry all the participants to Tioman Island from Kuantan Port," responded MINDEF in their letter to Project Director. Big chunk of our financial requirement have been resolved with the confirmation of transportation by MINDEF. All of the project committees were vehemently committed to secure the remainder portion of the financial requirement. We managed to secure the required financial obligations through selling of advertisement pages to the corporations, financial assistance from Pahang State Government and donations from high networth individuals. Simultaneously we have also interviewed the participants from various faculties and decided to have mixture of senior and junior participants of 40 people. Participants must have certain degree of knowledge about the Islanders and able to contribute in the educational awareness programme. "We are carrying the University of Malaya flag and community mission that needs to be accomplished. Please show that We, the varsity students are of high integrity, courteous, polite and respectful," this was the message that I stressed upon to all the participants before boarding the bus to Kuantan.

Our transportation KD Sri Johor & KD Rencung were on standby. Our heartbeats were thumping with excitement upon seeing the battleships ready to ferry us to Tioman Island. We were divided into two groups of 25 people each ship and my group's ship was KD Sri Johor. I met the officers of KD Sri Johor and to my surprise, I met Lt. Md Dan (my secondary school senior). We talked about our school and his career as Navy Officer at the officer's cabin. When I went up to the deck, I saw nearly half of the participants were downed with sea sick and rested at the sick bay.The sea conditions were not as bad as my earlier journey to Tioman. The ship just rocked gently on the swell and the swaying made them sea sick. One after another succumbed to the sea sick and leaving me with no alternative but to join them at the sick bay. At least I could have a good rest before reaching our destination.

We reached Tioman before Asar prayer and the Islanders had have gathered at the Kg Tekek jetty to welcome us. We were urshered to a community hall where the foster parents were eagerly waiting to welcome their new son or daughter into their family. All of the participants have been officially introduced to their foster parents and were treated with some kampung style refreshment organized by the kampung folks. It was a jovial atmosphere and all of us had good time. Noor Aini (one of the committee member) and I were adopted by En. Alias (not a true name).

Before I proceed further on highlighting my experiences, let me give some info about Tioman at that point of time. Tioman is a small island located some 36 nautical miles off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. If I'm not wrong, there were few villages such as Kg Tekek, Kg Salang, Kg. Mukut, Kg Juara and Kg Ayer Batang. Almost all of the villages were located on the west side of Tioman Island. Tioman had a small runaway and Berjaya Air used it to ferry their guests to their resort from KL. Ferries were from Mersing Jetty only. The only bitumen road in the island was a connecting road from the so-called airport to the only established resort on the island, The Berjaya Resort. Most of the islanders used motorbike as their mode of transport. Walking was the most popular way to go around the villages. All the islanders I had met were slim and fit except few of the old folks. About 90% of Tioman was covered with a dense tropical forest and the dark green ridges forming the backbone of Tioman. There were few chalet operators at that time such as En Nazri of Kg Tekek and En Zul of Kg Ayer Batang. The groceries and other provisions were brought by boats or sampans from Mersing. They had a small primary school with students less than 20 and Pusat Kesihatan acted as the Island Clinic.