July 5th, 2019
Today was beautiful and the water is crystal clear. This would have been a great day for diving, but we needed to return the scooter to the other side of the island, and my foot was infected.
We got our stuff ready and set out on the scary road back to the west side of the island. We made it safely and it was so funny because one of the locals who passed us on his scooter was waiting on the other side, to make sure we had made it. When we got there, he raised his fists in the air and said “You guys made it! You should get a T-shirt that says you survived the road to Juara”. Happy to have that part of the journey done, we rode to the dive shop and picked up the rest of our luggage. In my big bag I had all of the medicine and started taking an antibiotic for my foot. We returned the scooter and got a ferry ticket back to the main land.
Our next stop is the Perhentian Islands which is about 6 hours north. After the 2-hour long ferry ride we arrived back in Mersing and went to the bus station. The next bus wasn’t for 3 more hours so once again we had some time to kill in Mersing.
This town is actually bigger than I thought, and we saw a new part of it located by the bus station and not the ferry terminal. While we were walking slowly with all our stuff trying to pick the most appealing place to eat, I spotted a Dominos and we went there… I know it’s terribly Western of us. All of the local restaurants are outside in the intense heat, and worse of all with the flies that won’t leave you alone and try to get to my wounds through the band-aids. Dominos had air conditioning without any flies. Plus, I won’t try to deny that pizza is one of my most favorite foods. We killed the time there and I researched the Perhentian Islands. Afterwards we went back to the bus station and waited for the bus which was an hour late. We arrived at our stop around 10:50pm and the next bus we needed was at 11pm. I rushed to the window to buy the ticket only to be told it was too late. We would have to wait until tomorrow. We shared a cab with another traveler to a nearby hostel and stayed in Kuantan for the night.