back from my weekend Bintan trip with alan and travis! it was a good 3 days, a little too short for my liking.. but ah well, it's better than nothing.. here's a recap...
Day 1, Saturdaybooked the 9.05am ferry cos i thot we could reach there early and start our holiday straightaway. only, it turns out that we had be there an hour early to collect our boarding passes and check in. darn.. mental note to self : try not to be too greedy next time! haha
so we got to the Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal at 8am and collected our boarding passes. the ferry ride itself is about an hour, and since Bintan time is an hour behind Singapore time, this meant that we would arrive at Bintan the same time we left Singapore.. cool.. hehe
while waiting at the Indonesian customs, i spotted felicia from Arts and we waved to each other. sheesh, even when i'm out of the country and in another part of the world, i still see CSS people. reminds me of the time when i was at Pulau Ubin when i ran into philo. talk about a small world..
so after clearing customs, we boarded the hotel bus to the Nirwana Resort Hotel. was pleasantly suprised to see a welcoming committee of dancers and drummers dressed in traditional costumes. wah, felt so important sia.. machiam like some super big shot VIP. haha. had to supress the urge to laugh out of embarrassment while making our way to the hotel reception to check in.
turns out the official check in time is 3pm - that means we have about 5 hours to kill. left our luggage with the hotel reception and decided to head out to the nearby Pasar Oleh Oleh to grab lunch and buy watever stuff we forgot to bring.
since we still had time after lunch, we thought we'd try out the massage there. opted for a full-body massage at 38 bucks per hour. hm.. my first time getting one, and i didn't really think it was relaxing leh. most of the time, i was trying not to laugh out from feeling so ticklish. right before the masseurs came in through the curtain, i overheard them say "botak" a few times followed by giggling. think they were trying to arrange among themselves who would get who. and after the massage, one of the masseurs said to Alan, "your friend, botak! very handsome!" to which i replied, "aiyah! no wonder so many Bintan girls were staring at me just now!" haha. guess the locals there have a thing for skinheads.
got back to the hotel and checked into our rooms. we originally wanted the cheapest option which was a room with a garden view. but unfortunately, they were booked full so we settled for the next cheapest option which was one with a sea view. and boy, it was worth every dollar extra.. :)
too bad, it was at the rather deserted end of the beach, so theren't any bikini babes that we could drool over in the comfort of our aircon room. haha
after unpacking, we decided we wanted to try out the jet skis first. so we headed over to the Mana Mana beach club. on the way there, we spotted some hammocks along the beach. and since we never tried sleeping in a hammock before...
unfortunately, they were out of jet skis when we got there, so we made a booking for 4pm the next day. decided to head back to the hotel to try and see if we could get the All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) instead. but again, luck was not with us and we made a booking for those on 10am on monday. decided also to book a car with driver to go to the local capital of Tanjong Pinang tomorrow before jet ski-ing. it's one heck of an expensive ride - 100 bucks for 6 hours. but wat the hey, we should check out the local culture since we're there, shdn't we?
since we couldn't get our hands on jet skis or ATVs, we decided to head out to the beach instead. Alan and Travis tried their hand at kayaking while i chose to stay behind on the beach to catch some sun. and one thing i learned while swimming that day : no matter how clear the water may be at the beach, the sea water's still gonna be salty as hell. haha
ate dinner at the hotel restaurant named "The Coffee Shop". yes, yes, so we travelled all the way there just to have dinner at the kopitiam.. haha. decided to take the ala carte menu instead of the seafood buffet. but our final bill added up to almost the same price, so we decided the next day, we'd take the buffet option instead. hehe
felt tired after dinner, so thought we would sleep early and wake up later to catch the World Cup 3rd place match at 2am. set the alarm for 1:30 only to have the 2 lazy bums tell me that they were too tired to do down to watch the match at the hotel pub. and since none of the channels on the hotel tv had the match on, decided to go back to sleep..
Day 2, Sundaywoke up to have the sun shining brightly in my face. opened my eyes to see the time.. wat? 6:30am only?! sheesh, so this is wat morning should look like in Singapore if only we hadn't decide to be in the GMT+8 timezone.
since i was already up, decided to take a little stroll through the resort..
and i came across this machine making its way all over the beach, apparently "combing" the sand to make the beach all nice and picturesque for the tourists.. brings to mind the lame "comb the island" joke in Space Balls.. haha
had our complimentary breakfast buffet at The Coffee Shop. stuffed ourselves silly since we didn't plan to eat lunch at Tanjong Pinang.
the driver named G picked us at 10. turns out the ride to the city will normally take 1.5 hours. sheesh.. even with G's fast driving, it still takes like an hour and 10 minutes.
now, if you're expecting Tanjung Pinang (T.P) o be a cosmopolitan city with sky scrapers and nice buildings, you're gonna be disappointed. haha. it's just a lot of double storey shophouses lining the streets. there was only one slightly more modern-looking Tanjung Pinang Mall which was like 3 storeys high. G brought us to this Bintan Mall where they sold DVDs for only S$4. no wonder he said Singaporeans always buy a hell lot of DVDs back.
now, the strange thing about Bintan is that there are a lot of Polo shops around. at the ferry terminal, there's already like 2 shops, plus one more inside the departure hall. at our hotel, there's 2 shops there too. there's one at Pasar Oleh Oleh. and at Bintan Mall, there's one too. not too sure if it's the same "Polo" brand they sell in Singapore. i mean, they sell a regular polo tee here at 100 bucks a piece. but in Bintan, even in the hotel, they sell it for 50. at T.P however, they go for 35 bucks. bought 2 polo tees there since it is the cheapest we've seen so far, and there's a 30% sale.
on G's recommendation, we decided to go for another massage. only this time, the masseur was younger and stronger. ouch. but the massage was probably a mistake in more ways than one cos it ate into watever little time we have there. since we only booked the car for 6 hours, and the journey back and forth would take up half of that, we have only a short time in T.G. later, G told us that there was an 8 hour package which we should have taken instead, but too bad no one one told us about it.
on the way back to the resort, G stopped us at a roadside stall to eat durians. haha.. shiok.. just so happens it's durian season so good for us. but it's a bit gross tho, after eating just toss the leftovers into the trees behind the stall. so there are quite a few flies swarming over the durians while we ate. got complimented by the stall owner on my handsome botak head again. damn, i'm like a freaking rock star here! haha
as we were reaching the resort, it started to rain heavily. imagine flying down a 2 lane road (only 1 lane for each direction) at 100km/h in the rain weaving in and out of slower traffic. haha.. shiok sia.. thank goodness for G's driving skills which brought us back safe and sound. ended up a little bit over time, but they were nice enough not to charge us for it. but the rain meant that jet ski-ing was now out of the question. bummer. so we headed out to the beach and pool instead.
dinner after that at The Coffee Shop again. took the buffet option this time. turns out they have a rotating daily theme. the day's theme happens to be Japanese and Korean. stuffed ourselves with teppanyaki and tempura.
slept early again so that we could watch the World Cup final at night. caught it on the hotel room TV cos Travis tends to get super animated whenever he watches soccer, esp since he has money on the French to win, and he doesn't want to be beaten up by the Italian jersey-wearing fans we saw earlier in the day. was drifting in and out of sleep while watching the match after the first couple of goals, only waking up to see wat's happening whenever Travis shouts. that Zidane head butt was utterly hilarious. went back to sleep after the match ended, with Travis grumbling about how he was cheated of his money by Zidane and the referee. lol..
Day 3, Mondaywoke up to the sound of the falling rain. oh crap.. if the rain continues, we might not be able to go for ATV as well. that would be a real sad ending to our holiday.
fortunately after we finished breakfast, the sky cleared up and it was all systems go for ATV! before starting, the guide told us that it was gonna be muddy since it just rained. just the way we like it! haha.
ATV was fun! and a bargain at 50 bucks an hour. apparently, there was a promotion going on, the original price was 70 or 100 per hours. guess we lucked out. we went on the nature trail which included part of the beach, the jungle and some area with nothing but dirt. somehow, having mud flung all over your body doesn't seem like that big a deal when you're speeding on an ATV. hehe
after ATV, we decided to try our luck with the jet skis. luckily, we only had to wait a while before we got our turn on the skis. too bad there were only 2 working jet skis, so we had to take turns between being the driver and the passenger hanging on for dear life. haha. riding on the jet skis was shiok! if you manage to be going fast enough and catch a wave as its coming in, you can literally fly off. lol. it's just too bad, the course was set in a triangle between 3 buoys so it got kinda boring for a while. so 30 mins was just about nice. we paid $60 per jet ski which was pretty alright if you asked me.
after jet ski-ing, we checked out of our room and went kayaking since it was still early for our bus to the ferry which was coming at 3:30.
all in all, it was a nice weekend getaway. got the chance to try out the ATVs and jet skis which i never tried before. not to mention going for full-body massages and discovering the pain centers around the body. saw a bit of the local culture at Tanjong Pinang. stuffed ourselves silly with all the buffets. the one regret is that we didn't manage to get enough sun. can't be helped, with the cloudy sky and rain on sunday and monday.
so it's back to work tomorrow! sigh.. 3 days is definitely not long enough a holiday in my opinion. but no choice, it'll have to do until i can go for a longer one. end of the year perhaps? looking forward to it already.. haha
more random photos..
giant chess set in the hotel lobby
no durians allowed in the hotel, sorry
our room (in the middle, top right window)
remember to get yourself washed by the froggie before entering the pool...
on the ferry back to Singaporemore photos from the trip can be found
here
