love and turtles and all that jazz.

first and foremost i must say, i love you tom!

ha bloody ha.

i just spend the last 4 days in tioman island. okay pulau tioman, bunyi sedap sikit. it was bloody awesome. the weather was a bit uncooperative because it rained half of the time but at least we weren't warm yeah? tioman is gorgeous, the sea looks wide and promising and so much fun. we rented some life jackets and those snorkelling sets and went to the marine park and boy were there a lot of fish there! i even saw a stingray, but i was kinda scared that it'd kill me so i swam away like a pussy haha. there were also sea urchins around the island, and there was a waterfall and...i don't know. the place had this really great atmosphere, you know? the kind of vibe that made me wanna stay there forever and marry a fish or a boat or..something.

plus there were loads of hot foreigners. LOL.

ah, but now i have to talk about the juara turtle project. i feel like i owe these guys something, because what they do inspire the living hell out of me and i think they're selfless, noble, awesome human beings. the juara turtle project is located in kg. juara, which is in tioman. it's run by a bunch of volunteers from all over the world i think, but the ones i met were katie (i think) and tom. (a-ha!) tom's been staying there and managing the project for about 2 years already (in between trips to his native land, the yoo ass of aye)

so what these guys do is they scout the beaches at night to look for turtles that want to lay their eggs, and then they take the eggs and incubate them in a special area they've made for 2 months to basically protect them from harm, like us human beings, and predators, and all that. then when the turtle eggs hatch they set them free and voila! a good deed is done. the project has a mascot in the form of a blind 4 year old turtle named jo. she, or he, (tom wasn't sure himself) was born blind due to something to do with the moon's natural lighting (i am no expert in explaining difficult stuff like these). i touched jo's flippers, they felt rubbery and cool.

(i sound like an over-excited kid explaining something she doesn't understand all that well, yech)

the turtle project really kind struck me. here these people are, doing all they can for a cause that they love, living with basic amenities and infrastructures. they depend on donations to get by and the guy tom was wearing a t-shirt that had a s on it and was looking a bit worse for the wear, but he looked happy and content. seeing their dedication, i felt that someday, i would definitely come and volunteer there myself, even if only for a day.

for better info on the project, just head on to juaraturtleproject.com

...i hope tom or katie or any of those guys never read this. LOL.

i'll upload pictures later. yeah? ok.