Bintan - A Quick Travelogue

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until one comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang

Title includes Quick which is an indication that this travel was quick decision.  Week after week searching places for quick getaway, time constraint, laziness which was finally overcome on a Friday and ferry tickets was booked to Bintan Island [Riau Islands province belonging to Indonesia]

Bintan is just 60 minutes ride from Singapore.

Travelling is more beautiful when you get to stand outside a speedy boat and watch everything disappearing into endless sea.

We reached the Island around 2:00 PM local time and in no time we reached Bintan Lagoon Resort, which is just across the beach.

One thing which wow’d us was Private Immigration. Resort has its own Terminal and immigration facility.
Ferry is in operated from Tanah Merrah Terminal to Bintan Lagoon Terminal.
Once you are out of terminal, shuttle will be awaited which will take you to the resort lobby.

How cool is that facility J

Immigration Center located while entering Lagoon Resort 

Spacious Hotel Lobby & Reception , After completing immigration

Resort has quite a few activities such as Archery, ATV, Water sports, Swimming Pools, Clubs, Golf and abundance of space to walk around the beach.

If you manage to tip the driver during your water sports, you will to get a ride of a life time.
This happened to us during banana boat ride, we were drenched completely like we were moving at a speed of 20 to 30 km/hour in heavy rain and still no sign of stopping. Breathtaking experience !!

Pool View from Dining

Well, that’s the end of luxury. Suggestion is to do some research & enquiries before booking any activities in the Resort. As all are too expensive and even in Indonesia due to neighbouring country affect all are charged in Singapore dollars.

Evening went on by hustling with waves in beach and longs walks followed by nice traditional dance & dinner event in one of the resort restaurant.

Next day started with a tour to local village, which had nothing exiting until we managed to find one local guide who pursued us to take Mangrove Forest ride in a boat. In next few minutes we were strapped in life saver jacket and seated in a boat.

Ride was worth the time. Nice view in a speedy boat along the vast spread waters. Was like piercing through a carpet of water , was more enjoyable due less crowd on particular day.

About to enter Mangrove Forest !!

We were lucky enough to spot few snakes & lizards along the ride.

Amazed to watch how roots are so strongly attached to sea water and also the importance of these roots when Tsunami hits, which will help to hold back the water to some extent.

Had an awesome feeling like entering into forest for an Adventure , kinda Nat Geo One :) however no crocodiles :P !! had to make curves and turns on occasions.

Inside Mangrove forest 

Awesome speedy curve

It was 2:00 PM and our ride back to Singapore departs at 4:30 PM, so it’s time to say good bye to all the wonderful beaches & places. Took back home yet another memorable experience 

Few Travel Tips & details listed from my experience

Stay – Island is divided into three parts

·       Bintan Resorts [Where much of know resorts are located, very near to ferry terminal]
·         Trikora Beach [Another white sands beach and few other resorts]
·         Tanjung Pinang [City, not much interesting if you enjoy beach]

Places & activities of interest

Water Sports , if one is interested in water sports its quite a good location and at times can get offers worth
Mangrove Boat Ride [ fire flies during night time ]
Snorkeling [ Make sure to check the location before purchasing the tickets ]
Various city & village tours [ Not much entertaining , if nothing else to do then can give this a try ]

Read More

Riding Through Pulau Ubin

The bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine. ~John Howard

It was a beautiful Saturday morning when we packed some final list for our one day visit to Island “Pulau Ubin” [Meaning - Island of Granite Stones in Malay], one of the closely located Islands of Singapore. We were very excited as the main activity on the island was Bicycle Riding, kept wondering what took me so long to take this trip

We reached the pier around 10:00 AM, there were small bumboats which carried fixed number of passengers on each trip. Though the boats bore a Vintage look and old but they were well maintained and one needs to pay a small amount to travel across. Travel time is 20 to 30 minutes from Singapore Changi Point Ferry Terminal.

Once we arrived, it was a delight to see bicycle renting shops all over the place and few eateries.  We managed to find one and yeah these we cycles with gear J and thus started our tour of the island.

It was thrilling to check the map and deciding the route, pit stops etc. as this was sort of a bicycle adventure J for us. Roads throughout the island were well maintained and we managed to get lost for few minutes just rambling around.

First half of the journey did tier us out as the weather was too sunny and we were sweating which forced us to take few stops more than expected. To our good luck and surprise we found a shop selling tender coconut this was very much welcome and required at that moment.

It was the lush green everywhere which helped us with cool air whenever we pushed for speed. This reminded me of school days when we used to race for speed. After riding for around 2 hours we settled down in a shelter to have lunch, which we had carried from home.

We saw lot of bikers considering it was a weekend. Generally all riders carried food along with them since you hit the road one can’t find any restaurants or fast food centres. Which in a way is good as it gives a feel of adventure or else it will be another ride in concrete jungle.

Once we regained strength, we started searching for a place called “Chek Java Wetlands”. It’s a place with marine life and plantations. We spotted some wild bores J and two of them managed to steal food packs from parked bicycles.

One of the amazing views was from the guest house which is still under construction and a bridge which allows you to walk towards the ocean, we were fortunate enough to experience the thunderstorm and rain during our visit, we could even see the Singapore main land covered with rain.  It was a beautiful view and soon the rain followed here too.

It was around 4:30 PM when we started our ride back to pier. Even though we were completely stressed the ride was a lot of fun, as we encountered downhill rides on few occasions we took the speed to full throttle [well almost J ] and were also cautious at the same time as road was wet due to heavy rain.

We travelled a total of 15km within the island and every centimetre was WORTH IT.

Read More

Through an Indian Binoculars - Singapore

It’s been four years in the “Island of Surprises, Singapore” and decided to have a 
write-up on few of the selected experiences for my first blog.

Hope you find it interesting, enjoyable and readable.

View from ECP on a rainy day during cycling suddenly turned dark during noon, was awesome

During my journey of four years, Singapore always used to surprise me. Weather new attraction added to list, new malls introduced, customer friendliness or if I just go out on weekends [which I generally do a lot] always used to find something to ponder or learn.

There are number of things which I would like to mention. Top 10 must visit places, best international cuisine, top 10 Indian restaurants etc etc.

And I intended to share my experiences on these in my future blog also :)

Evening walk at Fort Canning Park

However for my first blog, thought of a different topic from the above list. As you all would have seen and read multiple articles.

As this is my first travel outside India, was always interested in our fellow countrymen and of course was very proud to see few and learnt lot from them ,there are numerous positive things I can write on these.

However chose to write on the untold things which we do unknowingly.

So request you all to be bit free thinking and acceptable :)

Top Five “Please don’t do”   

Below are the few experiences which I felt should be shared to larger audience, as I always believed sharing real life experience is good than class room learnings.

These are purely based on my personnel encounters and not targeted on any individuals or communities

Hope this will make interesting read for all of us J

1. Fountains are to pleasure our eyes

Personnel experience during a visit to one of the mall during weekends. While relaxing outside enjoying the lighting and weather, could see few of them were having evening dinner not snacks.

As observing the group, had a hint of the future events which would unfold. However was wishing that I would be proved wrong.

Eventually and unfortunately it did happen – one of them got up after finishing his meal and went directly to fountain [ there were quite a few people around relaxing , enjoying weekends by chatting and few kids playing around the fountains ] and washed his hands .

Ouch… that was very disappointing.

Please don’t do this

2. Travel Time

Before boarding an MRT or Bus please make sure you feed your children and also make sure they are not hungry.

There are few unavoidable situations where infants will cry due to various reasons. However there are few steps or measures which we need to ensure as part of our responsibility.

Cleanliness and proper feeding before Bus and MRT ride will help you and your fellow commuters travel smooth and easy.

Also please stop thrashing kids due to various reason J .

Suggestion : if required do get down in between stations and board the next train, so that this will relax a bit and also you can address if there are any concerns[ As frequency for each train is hardly 5 to 10 mins ]

 3. Another travel experience

As we all are aware, there are few scenarios where we get bit excited and talk loudly. Yes of course this is fine and good to have bit fun. However have observed in certain scenarios it goes beyond control which might cause frustrations to fellow commuters.

One of the example is screaming between first and third row of seats and having continues conversations, there are few countries in world where Bus travel is considered very calm and quite J

No hard feelings here please J

4. Time to travel in Bus again

  One of the common observations during Bus travel, please do keep your Travel Card handy before your stop arrives.

Multiple scenarios, where bus is waiting for a single person to present his/her exit card J.

Also during those scenarios, Instead of getting off the bus there will be funny conversations along with little laugh with your fellow friends meanwhile the bus captain and all the passengers be waiting for them to complete the action.

  5. Wait for the signal

Have come across in certain places or locations, where we are very much in hurry to cross the road.

Do have patience “green man” will appear and all waiting fellow mates will be allowed to cross the road in the crossing area.

Let’s make travel a pleasure and lively experience for all of us :) Have Fun!!!

Feedback and comments are welcome J

Read More