Bintan

So ASTAR decides that with my batch of scholars leaving for PhD overseas soon, it'll be good for us to get together and mingle, to get to know each other better before setting off.

Hence, a 2D/2N stay in Bintan, fully paid.

=D

Haha WELL...on Friday we left Changi on a ferry bound for some major tropical bumming...I've never actually been to any of the Indonesian resort islands, which for some reason all start with B (Bali, Bintan, Batam), and had no idea where they were...interestingly enough though we leave by ferry from the east of Singapore, travelling east for an hour, the time in Bintan is actually an hour BEHIND Singapore...

Bintan turns out to be big...it's twice the size of Singapore...but divided into two parts, the northern resort part and the southern non-resort one...as Wikipedia Travel states, "Bintan Resorts is a colony of Singapore in all but name"...haha Britain must be so proud now... "aww my little colony is having colonies of its own"...

Also from Wikipedia Travel: "The area is separated from the rest of Bintan by barbed wire, checkpoints and armed guards......Behind its barbed wire Bintan Resorts is, like its mothership Singapore, stultifyingly safe. You can even drink the tap water" .............yup that's the mark of Singapore all right...



We arrive at our resort Nirwana Gardens in the evening to be greeted by a welcome party, with drummers and dancers and welcome drinks...

Dinner's at a kelong (fishing platform on wooden stilts) restaurant, with a ten-course seafood meal of crabs, fish and gong gong (sea snails, where you get the meat out of the shell with a toothpick....the Bintan brouchure claims that it's an aphrodisiac, but I don't feel any more frisky...I imagine it's a ploy people use to get tourists to eat otherwise disgusting things....like oysters)....and of course, with the beach resort comes the obligatory pina colada =D

The night sky is amazing...try as we might, none of us could identify a single constellation, not even the usually conspicuous Orion or Big Dipper: because the sky is so clear, there are SOOO many more visible stars that you get lost trying to trace any patterns...

The resort looks like a castle at night...didn't have a tripod to compose a better shot though..


Well by the time we get back it's late night, so while no outdoor events, it does mean World CUP time! Don't usually watch soccer myself, but in a group hey why not?

There's a pub near the lobby showing the game...we catch the great Netherlands-Ivory Coast game...the pub was surprisingly empty, though the resort was supposedly fully booked...where have all the soccer fans gone?








The next day after breakfast we pay our dues...in return for this trip we have to spend the early afternoon discussing issues pertaining to our scholarship...





After all that hard work (all 40 mins worth of it), we find that of course it's raining....



So after lunch, it's back into the meeting room, where some start giving tutorials on Texas-hold-em (poker)......

I join a vigorous game of pictionary...huh we're playing indoor games at a tropical resort....but the skies clear toward the late afternoon, and we finally get to soak in the sun sea and sand....a few go on an all-terrain-vehicle ride around and through the jungles of Bintan, whereas I opt for kayaking with a few others...it's nice to paddle along underneath the wide open sky (and the sky does seem wider while you're at sea, with no trees or buildings to restrict your view)...nostalgia hits: we went kayaking along the fjords in Norway a year ago, and admittedly that was more magical....and the same problem hits us now as then: no one wants to being a camera onto a kayak....so no pics of arguably the best scenes so far on Bintan...

Dinner's at another beach cafe, with another pina colada...hmm the rum's getting to my head...

And we gather later on in someone's room for all-night cards and more World Cup...this sets the tone of the night:





Yeah right...15 of us and they finish only maybe a cup's worth of each....and as a guide to how expensive some things are here:

While looking for mixers for the alcohol,
Me: "It's SGD12 for 6 cans of Sprite"
Vijay: "Wow guys that's cheap! Let's get 12!"



Again....alcohol makes people smiley....

And our all nighter lasts till 2am..haha not the most impressive of late-night parties...still we had to catch a 7.30am coach to the ferry terminal, so I'm still groggy from lack of sleep now...Will be getting more pics from others, and I'll put any with more of me up..haha