The First and Last Resort

July 12, 2011

If you are ready for a blog on the real scoop on Indonesia, you are going to be sorrily disappointed. Bintan is anything but the real Indonesia- it is pretty much a resort town. There is different restaurants and resorts in Bintan but they all seem to be part of the same whole- and there is nothing authentically Indonesian about the place. That being said, the beach is beautiful, white sands and clear water i.e. we are not in the Mekong anymore!

Finally, a day to just rest, rather than worrying about knowing where to go, what to do. Once we figured out the Singapore subway system, and got on the ferry, we were on our way. When we arrived to the resort, they gave us a welcome drink, and we went for lunch at the poolside restaurant. The food was average, a little overpriced, but that's pretty much what you can expect from a non-all inclusive resort. What we shouldn't have gotten was Carlsberg that tasted like water. I thankfully had ordered a ginger ale, but Andrea, Doug, and Alex were not so lucky. I am not sure if they ever did complain to management about it- they did to the server.

We sorted out our room situation after lunch, we ordered King beds in our rooms, and instead Andrea and I had two singles. That was not going to work for our last night in a hotel on the trip. After being moved to a room on the upper floor, we headed out to the beach. I walked as deep as I could into the South China sea without getting swept away- not trusting my swimming abilities in there. Alex, Kate and Doug snorkelled while Andrea goofed around with me.

I went back to shore, and took out my camera for some candid shots, when suddenly I hear yelling behind me. At first, I think it is about jellyfish coming onto the beach, but instead a worker at the resort is yelling out "dolphin, dolphin". I turn around and see the dolphin leaping in the air in the distance and back into the water. I point this out to the rest of the group in the water but the dolphin disappears quickly after another couple of more jumps. The dolphin was too fast and far away for me to get a good shot, the best I got was a splash in the water, which could have been anything.

After a time on the beach, we moved to the pool, and Andrea tried to give me an impromptu swimming lesson. I tried but still have a lot of room to grow, as I am a stubborn learner sometimes. Anyway, after a little prompting, I encouraged Andrea to come with me to the bar that you could swim up to for a drink. Not having had the pleasure of this novelty as she had in Aruba, I told her I would buy her one of the overpriced drinks, so I could partake and not feel like a complete alcoholic. It was the afternoon, not the morning and it was literally one drink, give me a break.

When dinner rolled around, there was no consensus on where to eat, so Andrea and I hopped on a shuttle to the Indian restaurant on the island. The highlight of the meal for me was the vegetable pakora which seemed to have more variety of vegetables (very deep fried) than I had found in Toronto. The food was the best we had in Bintan but my stomach immediately regretted it, too much spice at the time.

In spite of the upset stomach, I still pushed myself for a nice moonlight walk along the beach with Andrea. I thought I was seeing things but crabs did cross our path on the beach, and then we encountered a large snail on the path back to the hotel (a few inches in length). One of its brothers weren't so lucky, it got crushed on the sidewalk in the dark. We ran into Alex and Kate in the lobby of the resort, and found out that Alex was the accidental assailant of the snail. I will not repeat the account of the sound that the snail made when he stepped back on it- for the sake of those with weak stomachs.

The night ended as many nights did, watching bad TV, and fell asleep. Before we knew it, we were back on the Ferry to Singapore the next day.

Next up, the final chapter of my Southeast Asia...."So Long, Farewell Singapore".