Checking back into Malaysia.
12 February 2014 | Tioman Island, Malaysia
Bill
We upped the anchor just after a nice lunch of hamburgers off the grill and headed for the main town here on Tioman--Teluk Tekek. It was just a couple of miles down the coast so an easy trip. We dropped anchor off the main jetty and took Puff(our dinghy) to the marina in town. The Jabatan Laut(Harbor Master) has an office at the marina so that made it easy, plus it was well past lunch time. Guess not as the office was locked up. OK, we knew that the offices for Customs and Immigration were at the main ferry terminal so off we walked. It was only about a kilometer down the road so no big deal. As we approached the terminal, we saw other waiting with their baggage. Tioman is a major tourist island with lots of small hotels and beaches. Well, the office at the terminal we also closed. We grabbed a drink at a small store next door and had nice conversation with the woman that owns it(well, her husband probably owns it as she is Muslim). He husband drives probably the only taxi on the island. She clued us in on how to get around the island and the rates to take a nice tour. A short time later,(now approaching 1500, we set off to see if we could find the main offices of Immigration and Customs. We were told they were down the road so off we went. A couple of kilometers later we found Customs. A big building that is just about empty. As we entered the building, we heard lots of music and bad singing coming from one of the offices. We looked in and found that one of the Customs officers had set up a nice sound studio in one of the empty offices. Keyboards, speakers, big screen tv monitor, microphones for singing and more. The officer took us to the next office where one of the ladies(just happened to be named Diana) took our paperwork and told us to come back when we were ready to check out. They directed us to the next building for Immigration.
At Immigration, we were greeted at the gate by three female guards(no guns) and had to sign in to the complex. She directed us to one of the Immigration Officers laughing all the time(no clue why). He took us in and asked what we wanted. We need to check in to Malaysia having come across from Brunei. His response--"Sorry, we can't do that here. You have to go the the Ferry Terminal." We explained that we had and that there had been no one there. He told us he would meet us there but that it was a long walk to get there. We assured him that it was not as we had just walked it. Off we set for the terminal again. As we went down the main road and didn't see him pass us, we have no idea how he got there first but he was there waiting for us when we showed up. Maybe he took a boat since it's about the only way to get around the island. He took our passports and gave us some more forms to fill in and he pulled out his stamp and I pulled our ours and we each stamped all the pages. We had a stamp made before we left the US with our names, boat registration number and the name of our boat on it so we could stamp official papers. The officials love it when we pull it out. They feel it makes things more official. The Immigration officer then took our passports and placed his stamp right in the middle of one of the pages and affixed it there. He now took up an entire page for just one stamp!!! Normally you can get three or four stamps on a page but this guy wanted an entire page just for Malaysia. OK, yes it is a new passport with tons of empty pages but come on, we need this passport to last us for the next ten years. With the stamp in place, we were all checked in and headed back for the marina. Tioman is a duty free island so beer, wine and chocolate is cheaper here so we stoped in at one of the duty free stores and picked up a couple of cheap bottles of wine--Pinnacle. We can buy more later if we like it. Back to Puff and back to Zephyr. It was now approaching 1700 and we wanted to get back to Monkey Bay while the Sun was still up. Up came Puff on deck(we never drag her behind us--not ever)and we headed back. Got in just at 1800 and dropped the anchor and got set for another quiet night. No fisherman showed us to join us so we had the bay to ourselves. We had a nice quiet evening of watching more shows on the computer and drinking a bottle of our new wine. Today, take Puff and explore the area.