After a magnificent two weeks on Tioman island it was time to get back to reality…whatever that is, or maybe we were going from reality into some other place??

We said our goodbyes to our new family from JTP, piled into the back of the pick up truck with our worldly possessions and headed for the ferry terminal. It seemed an eon ago that we had arrived on this island.

On arriving in Mersing, on the mainland of Malaysia, Becky and the kids stayed put in a curry house and dined on ‘roti canai’ whilst I did a recce and tried to find a hotel with decent wifi, to stay for a few days. 

Despite loving our time on Tioman at JTP it was nice to finally have comfy beds with linen, a warm shower, TV and our own mini fridge. It wasn’t much but it felt palatial compared to our digs from the previous two weeks. We needed a few days to regroup, do washing, get online and catch up with admin and research and plan our next move. I continued my late night/early morning  vigils of waking up to watch the football, and had an interesting chat with a Frenchman whilst watching a game in the hotel dinning room.

He had sold his textile business 10 years prior, at quite a tidy profit from what I deduced, and had been travelling the world solo since then, covering 77 countries. He’d done most of Europe by motorbike then had to sell it in Georgia as he couldn’t ship it, and the recipient was an extremely fortunate local who picked it up for a song.  Quite a life.

Our next move had to take into account the knock out stages of the World Cup as England were cruising and our path to the final was looking very promising. I told  Becky that I needed to be with fellow countrymen to watch the upcoming games, especially if the unthinkable but completely plausible was to happen….could football really come home?

We toyed with the idea of Singapore but it was too expensive, and instead we opted for a few days back in Kuala Lumpur. After five very low key days in Mersing it was back on the bus to KL, to stay at the ironically named ‘Quality Hotel’… as it was far from what it’s name suggested. We did a few touristy things during the 5 days, and then the unthinkable happened: England lost to Croatia in World Cup semi final, the bubble had burst, and my longing for a beer garden in North London to be amongst fellow football aficionados diminished.

Following on from Rico and Tiana’s love for felines on Tioman, we had managed to source another volunteering project, on the east coast of Malaysia, at a cat shelter for stray and injured cats. It seemed perfect. We had certainly done our time in KL during our two stints there and it was nice to be on a bus for a fresh adventure.