Palau Tioman, great beaches and jungle

Palau Tioman is a beautiful island of Peninsular Malaysia's south east coast.  As you approach the island from the sea it's famous dragon horns stick out from the jungle clad hills and catch the clouds giving the place a really magical look. The jungle covering its interior is pretty good and it is easy to cross the island along a well used path between Tekek and Juara beach. There are few large mammals other than long tailed macaque monkeys and black giant squirrels(they aren't really that big), but I saw plenty of lizards, day flying bats and insects when walking through the forest there.

The marine life off Tioman is also excellent with great opportunities for snorkelling including with the local black tip reef sharks.

Black tip reef shark with remora attached. Taken at night feeding by the jetty seen in the picture above.

There is a nice waterfall that can be visited called the Asah Waterfall near Mukut. This a nice but popular waterfall. It took about an hour and a half walking there from my resort and for most of the time I had the place to myself. Inevitably a tour group turned up eventually taking the short walk from Mukut jetty, still clad in their bright orange life jackets. At this point I left it to them and walked back along the undulating forested coastal path.

The highlight of the return leg was undoubtedly being charged past by two huge stampeding monitor lizards. The first shot past oblivious to my presence but the second stopped dead on top of my feet, looked at me, panicked and shot off into the forest.  There were loads of these lizards on the island which with no natural predators on Tioman are at the top of the food chain.

Another monitor lizard (Varanus varanus) taken at the resort

Another group of animals seemingly doing well on the island was bats. There were unusual day flying insect eating bats wherever I walked through forested areas. Too fast to photograph(I did try) these bats zipped about me at high speed keeping low as they hunted between the trees.  In the village of Tekek however I found a big colony of short nosed fruit bats roosting through the day in some trees near a river. The stink from their droppings was pretty potent so I guess that they have been there for some time. They were a restless bunch constantly fidgeting and squawking as I took a few shots with my SLR.

Cynopterus brachyotis (Lesser Short-nosed Fruit Bat) 

Another notable feature of the jungle on Tioman was the abundance of flying lizards gliding between the tree trunks, with the males often chasing rivals whilst signalling with their brightly coloured skin flaps(dewlaps) under their chins.

Draco melanopogon (Black-bearded Gliding Lizard) Male 

Life is good on the island!

The long tailed macaques were also common throughout the island and pretty chilled out in the absence of big predators.

All in all if you like decent jungle at the back of your beach and decent reefs, Tioman is for you.

Beach used as a location in the film South Pacific