At exactly 8am a small boat with several people already on board pulled up alongside the concrete jetty. We didn't think we could fit the bikes on this boat. Fortunately the other people who were waiting to go to Mersing told us that this was a boat to Mersing, but not the "big boat" we had tickets for. About 15 minutes later our bigger boat arrived. It was long and skinny like the ones in Sarawak on Borneo.

We piled our bikes in the bow among a tangle of decaying ropes and cables (Joan: we later tagged this boat ride as the single most damaging thing we've done to our bikes so far--it totally rusted our gears and chains). I don't think the Coast guard would have approved. We piled our stuff on top of a bunch of other bags in a little spot next to the pilot house. One of our bags hung into the captain's little space but he didn't seem to mind.

The boat zipped down the west coast of Tioman Island stopping at every jetty, taking on and letting off passengers. about half the passengers were tourists. For the first half hour while we did the bus routine to all the jetties, the TV showed a strange MTV-like video but for children. The words were in English and the singers were black American women. The melodies sounded like Disney songs with a rock beat. (Joan: the lyrics were alternatively about worshipping God and blowing away policemen). The lyrics were free of swear words. It seemed like an elementary school primer for hard core rap.

When we finally started the 60 minute crossing to peninsular Malaysia, they put on a bootleg copy of the movie "U.S. Marshals." We didn't think they would have time to show a 90-minute movie during a 60-minute boat trip, but they knew something we didn't. I split my time between watching the movie in the cabin and watching the view from the deck. The sea was calm.

As we got close to Mersing I heard the engines throttle back. The movie was getting exciting and it looked like we would miss the end. I looked out the window and noticed that we were about 300 yards from shore and not moving at all. Then a guy came into the cabin and asked us all to move to the front of the boat because we were stuck on a sandbar. Joan and I did our part and climbed to the tip of the bow and about half the other passengers made some effort to move forward but the boat didn't budge. Actually, I didn't even hear them rev the engine to even try to budge.

As is typical for this sort of situation, we didn't hear any more announcements and no one seemed to know what was going on, or care. It was low tide, the boat was stuck, it happens all the time. So we went back in the cabin and watched more of the movie. We figured that at least we would see the end and save the trouble of wondering what happened to Denzel Washington for the next 12 months (our estimated time for getting to a video store).

After awhile a small boat came out and shuttled about 20 passengers to shore. We waited and watched. A while later another shuttle came and took 20 more in. Then suddenly the TV went off. The movie only had about another 10 minutes to go! The only people left on the boat besides the crew were about 15 tourists. We all yelled for the crew to put the movie back on. But they said, "Not Possible." (Joan: I felt like I was in kindergarten, when the teacher ordered us all to put our heads down for some unknown classroom crime).

Eventually we got shuttled to shore. We had originally planned to start riding north immediately, but since it was after 11am by the time we touched land, and we still hadn't eaten breakfast, we decided to stay in Mersing for the day.

That turned out to be a good idea. We liked Mersing. Everyone was friendly--we didn't run into a single Muslim Scowler. We found some good food. I got my haircut for the equivalent of US$1.25 by a guy who smiled the entire time. (Joan: the haircut took about 45 seconds. The guy just set his razor on buzz and lopped off most of Eric's beard and side hair. He reset it to leave a little more length on top). He seemed so happy to cut my hair for some reason, and since he didn't speak much English, I wasn't burdened with maintaining barber small talk.

During our exploring we came across a group of guys playing a game called sepaktakraw. I had never seen this before. It's played on a court very much like a volleyball court but smaller in every dimension. The net is about five feet high. The ball, about six inches around, looks to be made of rattan but is actually plastic. The game is played much like volleyball, except the players can't touch the ball with their hands. From a distance it looks like they're playing hacky-sack over a net.

The guys we watched played for the Mersing office of Malaysia Telecom, the country's main phone company. They were practicing that afternoon. They were good. Some of the guys could spike the ball with their foot. Just like in volleyball, someone would kick the ball straight up near the net and another players would do a backflip so that his feet were above the net at the exact moment the ball came within spiking reach. Then they would viciously spike the ball while completely upside down. Sometimes the spiker would fall to the ground, sometimes he would do a complete flip and end up on his feet. Often the player on the other side would also do a flip to try to block the spike.

All this flipping made the game lots of fun to watch. Some of the players talked to us now and then. The way they were dressed (Joan: neat T-shirts and shorts) the way they carried themselves, the way they looked, reminded me of a softball team in America. There was a lot of freshly cut grass at the court there at the edge of town and the smell took me back to a baseball field on a July afternoon in Bettendorf, Iowa.

Back in town we found a place we could get ice-cold beer in a frosted mug, and pizza. We sat there for an hour and a half, eating, drinking, and watching "Lost Civilizations" on the Discovery Channel. Yes it was there, too. We learned a lot about the Roman empire.

Next: Pekan.

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