This is a continuation of the previous blog post
3D2N Bintan Trip - Part 1
Day 2 (25/01/2015)
Despite sleeping late the previous night, I woke up naturally quite early. It was only 7.00 am after I felt that I have lazed enough on the bed. Thanks to the time difference, actually it is already 8.00 am Singapore time.
I did some morning reading to kill time at the extended balcony, and it was quite great. However, maybe because we woke up too early and thought we had a lot of time to burn, we ended up leaving later than expected for breakfast. I forgot to take a picture of the breakfast, but it was just average.
We booked a cab at the resort to bring us to Tanjung Pinang. It was 900,000 Rupiah for 6 hours (close to S$100), and then 15,000 Rupiah for every additional hour. We didn't really have much options on how to kill time other than going to this place. No water sports since some of my friends did not bring swim wear, and they are not the sporty type.
It was about 1.5 hours car ride to Tanjung Pinang area. We listened to UFM 100.3 on the cab. Feels like we're in Singapore, listening to the Singapore traffic conditions and food recommendations on the radio.
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| The petrol station was closed, so the petrol was bought by bottle and refilled manually. Interesting. |
Banyan Tree Temple
Our first stop was the Banyan Tree Temple at Senggarang. The tour guide said when one of the early Chinese immigrants built a house here, and when he died it was not discovered until weeks later, and people then made it into a temple. Stories about Banyan Tree Temple from other sources online as follow: "
More than two centuries old, the temple carries with it a fascinating story, whereby an old man’s wish to die and be buried in his own home had caused the Banyan tree’s roots to grow around the house, as if enveloping it in a protective embrace."
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| Exterior view of Banyan Tree Temple |
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| Walls and pillars covered by Banyan tree |
Tanjung Pinang
The tour guide then drove us to this small shopping area at Tanjung Pinang. We were given about 1 hour here, and it is too much time for this boring little place. The merchandises at the shops were also not clearly labelled with price, making it difficult to shop there.
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| Tanjung Pinang Mall. |
Then we went to a bigger shopping mall called Ramayana. One thing I noticed about the departmental store is the lack of mirrors. In a Singapore departmental store, you just need to turn 360 degree you will be able to spot a mirror nearby. Anyway, this place is rather boring too. The most interesting place is probably the old book store and the supermarket.
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| Interior view of Ramayana, looks like departmental store. |
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| Bookstore with nostalgic feel |
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| The most interesting place to shop in Bintan is supermarket. That's what we bought. |
Then we went for some seafood lunch at this place. The time we spent eating is also chargeable into the cab fare. You can ask to know the final bill before the fish is killed, so that you don't get a shock. Our meal here totalled up to 981,000 Rupiah, which is about S$105 for the 4 of us. Could have spent less here, because we didn't need to get the medium dishes as we can't finish them anyway.
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| RM Ciu Yong Seafood |
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| Catching fish on the spot |
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| This fish was alive moments ago. Poor thing. |
This ends our Tanjung Pinang tour. It was not very exciting. In fact it was boring and expensive. I think it's not a very good way to spend money and time in Bintan, and I
do not recommend travellers to visit. I think playing water sports or just utilizing resort facilities are better alternatives to spend your time and money at Bintan.
The Beach
After going back to our resort, we took a short rest and then headed to the beach. I felt that the beach was rather nice. Fine sands, clear water and not crowded at all despite it was a Sunday when we visited. That was unlike what I have read elsewhere about unpleasant Bintan beach with tar glops everywhere. Maybe I was just lucky.
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| There's a bar by the pool and some seats in the pool. You can have a drink inside the pool. |
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| Front view of the resort from the pool. |
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| The beach was rather empty when we went |
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| Fine sands |
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| Habitat of the hermit crabs |
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| Nothing better to do |
In the evening, we visited the KTV lounge because we were told that we have "free" karaoke. No, it's nowhere near free. In order to sing there, everyone must order a drink, and reorder every hour. Let's say each of us order the cheaper drink like coke for 39,000 rupiah (S$4+), we'll be paying S$20/hour to sing at the common lounge. That's more expensive than most KTV places in Singapore. Alternatively, we can choose to get the private room for S$30/hour. We gave it a miss, and went down to play billiard instead.
At night we celebrated one of our friends' birthday and had some drinks and talk. We prepared a treasure hunt game for the birthday girl to search around the room looking for hints to find her birthday card, but it didn't really end up the way we expected. We bought some Choya and Tiger Beer at the ferry terminal for the night party too.
Day 3 (26/01/2015)
The last day was spent doing really nothing much at all. We checked out the rooms before 12 pm and left our baggage at the concierge. We weren't told about the check-out timing and extra charges until we asked about it after breakfast. We were just told to meet at the lobby at 4 pm for the shuttle bus for the return ferry. However the check-out timing was written in the fine-prints of the deal package. If we were not careful, we might really check out at 4 pm and pay the $20/h extra charges per room. Scary!
There weren't WIFI in the rooms and most places in Bintan Lagoon Resort. So people were just using their phone when in the lobby. The era of technology and internet is really robbing away the people-interaction time.
A friend who read the
Part I of the Bintan Trip post commented that it's not very exciting. Indeed the trip itself was not very exciting, but not every trip is meant to be exciting. This is more of a trip to chill out with old friends and being away from work for a short while. We couldn't finish our Rupiah too, because there's nothing much really worth spending money here.
One thing that was spoiling the trip was that we brought too much food from Singapore, and it was becoming a pain to eat them because we don't want to bring them back. I was constantly feeling too bloated throughout the trip was and always stuffing the junk food into my mouth with much guilt. I guess I overeat too much during the trip, and I am still feeling uncomfortable now! I guess I'm staying away from junk food for quite a while.
It's my first time visiting Bintan, it was a nice getaway but I think I have no intention to come back in the near future. If you're not doing any water sports, I think a 2D1N would suffice.
