Tioman Inslands Travel Guide
Nov 02,2007 00:00 by newsdesk

Phuket of Malaysia, Tahiti of the South China Sea, Asia’s answer to Aruba - beautiful tropical island paradise......Tioman Island is really something special. Legend has it that Pulau Tioman was once a beautiful dragon princess who stopped to catch her breath while flying between China and Singapore! The stopover proved so relaxing that she transformed herself into an island that would provide shelter and rest to passing travellers.
The largest island in an archipelago of 64 volcanic islands lying in the South China Sea, just off the east coast of Malaysia, Tioman is perfection with soft white beaches, aqua blue waters, emerald green peaks and iridescent coral reefs. The island is home to cheerful and friendly villagers living their days in the midst of this splendid tropical Garden of Eden.  Tioman Island

Happily, Tioman is still largely undiscovered - its small resident population lives mostly along the west coast and the few resorts complexes on the island are also on the western side, leaving the rest of the island to nature’s devices. The island is divinely beautiful, pretty as a picture or something straight out of movies with the twin peaks of Batu Sirau and Nenek Semukut sloping dramatically up, deep green jungles ringed by sparkling beaches surrounded by brilliant blue seas. The outlying reefs are wonderful for diving, snorkelling or simply swimming. So beautiful and so idyllic are Tioman’s environs that the island was chosen as the locale for Bali Hai in the movie ‘South Pacific’.

Deeper inland, Tioman is a paradise of verdant tropical jungles, rioting wildflowers, trailing creepers of orchids, a profusion of feathery ferns all coming together in an explosion of glorious colour. Silver water cascade down mountainsides, metamorphose into placid pools and gentle streams that wend their way down past palm fringed beaches to the sea.