just came back from a three day trip to bintan ! currently suffering from a sore-throat ... haiz ... prob from eating too much sugar crackers ... anyway here's a run-down of our bintan trip!




29/04/06, Day 1 : Its Sat and my bro's birthday !! but wasn't able to celebrate with him since im gg bintan ... we had dinner at genki afew days earlier though ...

I drove to tanah merah ferry terminal (tmft) tt day ... my 4th time driving w/o instructor ! wahhaa ... picked yingzhen n danming from the tamp mrt whereas juncheng met us at tanah merah mrt.






slept half the way to bintan on the one hour trip to bintan ... nth exciting happened on the first day actually ... reached the bintan ferry terminal ard 3 plus in the afternoon and waited for our transport to bintan lodge. by the time we arrived at bintan lodge and had settled in it was ard 5 ... we're contemplating to go to the beach but it was kinda late so we left tt for the next day ( thankfully , cos we found out later tt beach activities start to wrap up ard 4 ) ... n so we spent our first day exploring the area ard our lodge... namely pasar oleh oleh which sells overpriced goods ... I met CPT Andy there .. the guy who signed my ORD clearnace exactly 5 days ago !!! haha ... also topped up on our stores at the convience shops ... bintan lodge has cheap but good accomodation but is alittle far from the beach ... but the presence of pasar oleh oleh, conveience stores which sell items a little less ex compared to the ones at other hotels and a market place catered to locals made up for it ... all in all, its the kinda place u'll wanna stay if ur low on cash .. for cheapos like us ... btw each taxi trip to the beach costs s$14 while the beach entrance costs s$10.

We were greeted by the friendly Bintan lodge staff ... whom suspiciously looked like yz ...

View from our main door

We had a very filling dinner accompanied with commando houseflys at a restaurant nearby ... only s$10 per pax though ... but the food is good and in generous porpotions ... then we went back to the lodge ... n slacked all the way, watching shows from jc's new mp4 player. tts when i ate alot of sugered crackers n got my sore throat ... sigh ...

Day 2 : the 2nd day was more eventful ! was planning to take the shuttle bus to mana mana beach to meet bingling and her frens ... the shuttle was supposed to leave by 1015 but we reached there at 1010 only to find the bus has already left ... oh well ... we took taxi instead ...
only 4 bucks more ex overall for to and fro trips but more freedom.


reaching the beach, we checked out the prices for the activities there ... from my memory : jetski - 60 bucks ; snorkel plus boat trip - 40 bucks ; water skiing - 100 bucks ; sailing with instructor in laser - 60 bucks !!! all so ex !!!! argh !!! all in sing dollars too ... a word of advice : next time your gg bintan, no need to change currency ... at most juz change 20 bucks to buy from convience stores or to eat at market place. after much much much brainstorming , me n dm decided to try nacra sailing first (never do b4 mah ... so must try ) .. but since the nacra was being used, we booked a slot for it n the four of us went to play volleyball .. a group of indians just started playing as well so we joined in .. when they left for lunch, me dm n yz headed for the sea !


a while later bl n her 3 frens came kayaking near us ... tink they wanted to stop or sth ? dunno ... anyway in the end her 3 frens took off in one kayak while the remaining 4 of us kapoed her kayak ... tink it capsized like 4 times since we took over ? on purpose of course .. heh ...

after kayak i played volleyball alittle more after tt b4 heading to the nacra with dm ... yea ! well unfortunately for us it was a slow wind day ... and the nacra moved really really slowly ...tried to handle the steer n sails abit but found it wasnt easy to capture wat little wind we had ... in the end we left the instructor to the sailing ... i tried hanging to the ropes at the side of the nacra juz for the heck of it ... not easy man ... need quite abit of strength ... and balance ...
far away from shore, we decided to jump into the water ... again juz for the heck of it ... haha ... i hung on the rope at the side then jumped in while dm jumped straight from the boat. while we were in the water the instructor shouted 'BYE !!! ' n sailed away ... kidding ... he need some distance to steer the boat ard ... besides its almost impossible to keep it stationary ... anyway we swam for the boat n climbed aboard . towards the end the wind finally came ! n we experienced how fast the sail could go with winds ... about 10 times faster ! the speed would be greater though if there was a typhoon or sth near by ... shucks ...

Ahh ... the sun, the sea, the sky and dm ! ta-da!

lunch came after the sailing ... we ordered a 3-cheese-pizza ( which is actually juz 3 types of cheese melted onto a really thin slice of dough). food was ex ... so didnt eat too much ...

next up, jetskiiing !!! if u rem jet ski costed 60 bucks, but it was made more worthwhile by the fact the it could seat 2 ple . i shared one with jc while dm n bl took the other. i haven jetskiied for very long and almost forgot how it felt ... GREAT !!! haha ... especially when you're gg up to max speed and riding on the crest of the waves with water splashing all ard ! cool man ...


after jetski we just slacked ard somemore ... took some pics, played a little on the beach n changed up for dinner ! we ate at nirwana resort restuarant for dinner ... the food was quite good (has to be ! since it's 4 stars !!! ) .. i ordered beef rendang rice, yz ordered grilled chicken , jc ordered fish n chips n dm got lasange ... the portions were quite large too .. almost couldnt finish ( then again i could eat much more b4 compared to now .. but tts another story ) ... had cocktails after tt .. hic ...


by the time we took a taxi back to oleh oleh for some last minute shopping it was already 9 plus at night ... bought some drinks n snacks again .. jc n yz bought some clothes too ...after tt it's lodge sweet lodge ...


back at the lodge we rested awhile, bathed n then watched movies ! courtesy of jc ! wanted to watch beautiful mind but it proved too much for tired and inattentive minds like us .. switched to bimbotic show legally blonde 1 n 2 instead after 5 min into the show ... oh yeah ! just right ... yz was super tired so she slept first even b4 the show started. dm made it till half of the 2nd show. jc made it to near the end of legally blonde 2 ... i was the lone survivor !!! wahaha ...


thus ended the 2nd day.

Day 3 : me n jc shared a room ... n we were awoken by the 2 gals in the wee hours of the morning ... like 1030 am ... heh ... was planning to wake at 11 btw ... but by the time they finally got us out of bed it was nearing 11 anyway ... so no biggie ...

we packed our stuff n decided where to go after we awoke ..its our last day ! by 12 noon, we checked out but left our luggage at the counter b4 gg for lunch at the local market place ... ate rice with dishes ( most of the stores sell tt .. ) for only less than 2 bucks !!! haha ... shld have came here sooner ...


then we proceeded to play paintball at nirwana ... only to discover tt we needed advance booking ...settled for archery n air rifle instead ! tink the last time i played archery was in sec sch ? or was it JC ? hmmm .. cant rem ... we shared ard 50 arrows among the 4 of us ... didnt managed to hit the bulls eye though ... shucks ... but managed to hit its borderline twice ... jc hit bulleye twice ! gasp !

It went somewhere else ...

its my turn to stand at the target board ...

air rifle was more my thing ... 25 bullets among 4 of us ... first shot i hit target lo !!! was quite happy cos with my degree of 250 on right eye the targets looked like a bunch of colours ... good shooting courtesy of army training thank you very much ! handling a little diff from m16 but its bout the same... tried leaning on table n standing positions ...

next up was pool .. its 2 dollars per game but the cost halved when we played it singaporean style ... cool huh !


left with a little less than an hour i played chess with jc while the 2 gals occupied themselves with a book and anime ... score was 1:1 !!!

Ta-da ! Thus concludes our bintan trip! A short but sweet journey to our neighbour next door ...