Ahh… our last day in Bintan. We negotiated with a driver to take us to Tanjung Pinang, a city about 1.5hrs away from the Bintan Resorts. We figured it’d be interesting to get our of the resort area… but after we went there, for me, it would’ve been better to stay and relax on the beach. I’m not sure what the others thought. It’s very urban and we didn’t really know where to go so just ended up wandering around the few city blocks. We did a little shopping, I think Joyce and I were okay with shopping for clothes but the guys were very bored. We wandered around the streets looking for food but ended up where our driver had dropped us off and ate at the mall.

Ron and I ate the fried chicken place and he ordered a “spring chicken”:

Poor thing but it was very tasty… too bad chicken skin is really bad for you, it was really crispy and tasty.

After we left the city, we headed back to the area where we had dinner yesterday and went for a massage. Alex and Kevin had foot massages which they said weren’t that good. Ron and I had full body massages (SGD$28/60mins) and I thought they were pretty good. The pressure wasn’t as strong as I would’ve liked but it was very relaxing. I especially like the temple and head massage plus they crack your back and your neck. I’ve only had my back and neck cracked one other time when we were in Korea. They crack your back differently though, the women hug your from behind and twist you to the left slowly, then twist you back, then twist you again, then twist your back, then twist harder until you hear cracks. They do the same to the right and they can do it to your neck as well. It was a bit scary but my back feels great.

We headed back to the Beach Club to watch the sunset and wander around the beach collecting sand dollars and sea shells.

We’ll do something fun with this picture later…

We went to have a quick dinner before the shuttle arrived to take us to the ferry terminal. We took the last ferry back to Singapore at 8:15pm.

We arrived a bit late back to Singapore since the ferry is about 1 hour but Bintan is an hour behind Singapore, so although it was 8pm in Bintan, it’s 9pm in Singapore so we got back around 10pm. It’ll be tiring for all of us to go back to work tomorrow. But it was nice to get away and also get a bit of a tan 🙂

Fore more pictures, click here or see below:

The breakfast at Nirwana Beach Club (NBC) is not very special. It’s things like beef bacon, chicken sausage, fried potatoes, fried rice, omlettes, a couple of cereals, and a few pastries plus coffee, tea, or juices. But it’s free so what the hey..

But the view is very nice…

The guys looking tough… in front of our cabana:

Just thought it very funny…

After breakfast we went to try archery and rifle shooting. It’s SGD$8 for approx 25 arrows and SGD$8 for 35 bullets. I enjoyed the archery, reminded me of the time when we did it during high school P.E.

We had a quick bite then went to ride the ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles). We rented one single bike (SGD$50/hr) and two buggies (SGD$75/hr each). Now I know what it was like when cars didn’t have power steering… it was really fun but also pretty scary and dirty…

After we cleaned off all the mud, we went to find ourselves some dinner at Pasir Oleh Oleh, I think a “village” put together by Bintan Resorts. It has quite a few places to shop for souvenirs and also some food places.

Scary huh?

We ended up eating at a place called Bintan Idol where the food was pretty good. Large portions for an affordable price. They allowed us to bring our own wines for SGD$5 corkage per bottle. We were also serenaded by their band. They sang us English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Indonesian songs. It was pretty amazing they could fulfill all our requests. I took some videos of their songs so will find some way to post them later on.

To check out more pictures from the day, click here or see below:

http://picasaweb.google.c…BintanIndonesia

This evening we took a ferry from the east coast of Singapore to Bintan, Indonesia. Our ferry was at 8pm but we had to arrive 1.5hrs earlier to pick up tickets and go through immigration. It felt like we weren’t going to a different country because the ferry is only about an hour but we still had to go through immigration and also when we get to Bintan, we had to pay for a VISA. It’s $10USD per person for a 7-day VISA.

I was very happy to be leaving for the weekend since we haven’t been out of Singapore for the last month. Ron called me a big bag lady because I had my huge bags on both sides.

On this trip were Ron, me, Joyce, Alex, and Kevin.

The ferry ride was a bit turbulent. Actually, getting on the ferry was the worse, it was swinging side to side. I didn’t know the currents in Singapore waters were this strong. But I made it all the way without getting seasick. I think it helped I took a little nap.

We are staying at Nirwana Beach Club. Each cabana room is SGD$125 per night for 2 people, a 3rd person per room is an extra SGD$30 per night. The price includes breakfast, land transport from the ferry terminal, and all taxes are already included. The rooms are not fancy or anything but have air conditioning, clean towels and linens, shampoo, soap, a tiny TV, but the rooms were pretty spacious.

We got in pretty late so settled in quickly to our rooms and then went to find some food. We went to one of the nearby hotels on the shuttle and just had some Western food. There wasn’t much selection at the restaurant we went to but it was one of the few still open. The place was almost empty was well… guess people won’t come in until Saturday.

Tomorrow should be fun though, we will explore the resort a bit more.