The hardships of survivor island.

It's 8am as we drag ourselves and our freakishly large backpacks out the door of the lodge we are staying in. We shuffle into our bus. Pick up some fellow travelers (an Italian couple) and off we go on a 2 hour trip to the harbour to catch the boat to survivor Island.

Approaching the our destination I had thoughts of them throwing our bags overboard and telling us to swim to the Island but having luck on our side for once, much has changed since the now famous Pulau Tiga was the Island home of a group a people fighting to win immunity and be the ultimate survivor. We got dropped on the jetty had our bags lifted off the boat for us and made our way to 'camp'. Instead of putting up our shelter we had the difficult task of figuring out the correct combination of switches to work the air conditioner.  once we had overcome our first challenge we headed to 'Tribal Council' or Survivor Bar as the locals call it for some much needed refreshments after our hard labouring. After a short wander around camp and a delicious Malaysian buffet we were off to the volcanic mud baths.

Now, I would like to say we trekked through treacherous jungles going where very few men have gone before but that would be a slight over exaggeration of our 20 minute walk through the jungle on a man made path. The mud baths were...well...interesting at first but after a few minutes we just couldn't get enough of it. We gave into our animal instincts and splashed, sloshed and simmered in the mud for a while. Rumour has it this mud has properties that can turn back time on your body clock so we would like it to be known that your beloved Saffas are all 21 again....we have already booked our next visit.

Returning to camp looking like a rare tribe coming from the darkest corners of the jungle we washed ourselves off in the warm tropical waters. Once squeaky clean and feeling our 21 year old selves the shocking realization that some things had not changed on survivor island hit us like a scooter in Taiwan (out of nowhere with a family of five on it)!!! Having eaten at 1:00pm it was now 3:30pm and we were hungry but no food was to be served on the Island till 7pm!!! After much discussion about food rations we came up with the best solution we could...siestas in hammocks...a challenge we were willing to accept.

Finally dinner time!! Having spent some time with our fellow Italian travelers we got into a discussion about our plans to head to Italy which was great as these discussions were promptly followed by an invitation to their historic town and a home cooked Italian meal by an authentic Italian...Perfetto!! 


Sunrise over the jungle meant it was morning but more importantly....time for breakfast. Ready and well fed we discussed trekking through the jungle with our Italian friends...as it was raining this discussion continued until lunch. We ate again and after the rain had stopped it left us free to trek all the way to our trusted hammocks for a mid afternoon siesta. Now before you judge us, the jungle trekking did eventually happen but the original tribe of five had narrowed down to 2 brave survivors.  Michele and I bravely trekked 2km into the jungle before the sun started going down so we turned around and made our way out not for fear of the dark but rather the fear of missing out on the third and final meal time of the day. These survivors needed their food.

Our last night in our 'shelter' was met with some unpleasant guests one of which had eight legs and had taken residence on Jessica's tooth brush. Now for those who know me well, you will have a good idea of how the rest of this story goes. For those who don't know me well here it is: I didn't scream like a girl or jump around looking for bug spray...I bravely stepped fourth and met my enemy with my bare hands, won the war and saved the day....the end!!

After a good nights sleep we had breakfast, took some pictures and hopped on the boat to get back to mainland....we had officially been voted off the island due to our misuse of 'Tribal Council', our advanced bravery in dealing with eight-legged guests and lack of overall ability to function more than 10 meters away from our hammocks....

Volcanic Mud Baths