Banyu Biru Bintan

... on Sunday night and will be home in Canberra on Monday.

It has been a wonderful, wonderful trip and we start saving for the next one as soon as we get back - we will be screening the photos at home on the tele with popcorn and icecreams on the first Saturday night we are home! All welcome : )

Mark - we will give you a call on our home phone when we get to Sydney on Sunday night.


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So we had a pretty relaxing weekend, did nothing too adventurous but had a great time, none the less. A couple of friends of mine from class asked me to come to Bintan with them, as many exchange students went the weekend prior and had a blast. I talked to my friends and we all made the plans to head over to the island.

Meaghan and I decided to wait until Friday evening to go over (as she had a presentation that day), so we planned to meet the others when we got there. The guys ...

... Resorts from the Tanah Merah terminal which is not far from Changi Airport. So, we found one of the hotels from the Fragrance Hotel chain out in Joo Chiat Road and stopped there the night. Its quite an interesting area out there - lots of the classic shophouses and plenty of places to eat.

Incidentally, its worth checking out the Fragrance Hotel and Hotel 81 chains for reasonably priced accommodation in ...

... Europe, but I am guessing it had to do something with my blonde hair. The ferry ride back was horrible! The boat was rocking the entire way, and it was all that I could do not to get sick. All of the NUS students on the ferry had to tell me stories to distract me! Overall, I had a really relaxing weekend, but now I am behind on my school work! I am off to Borneo next weekend!

... as we left the ferry terminal and taxi drivers trying to hawk rides were swarming us, yelling for attention, moving forward, encroaching on our personal space. I tried not to look like a deer in headlights. "Mr. Lee!" came the call, through the noise. (Travis's name had been transmitted to Indonesia in this order: last name, first name, middle name - so Mr. Lee he became). And like an angel, Didi pulled us out of the crowd, snapped at the pushy ...

... no beaches on this side of the island. And all of the golf courses, golf being what Derek and Dane were most looking forward to doing, were all on the resorts. We should be on the other side! We found a cheap place to crash for the night, and then the next day tried to figure something out. We talked to a travel agent, and he made some calls and arranged a package for us at one of the resorts for 3 nights and 2 games of golf for the boys. And he ...

... farewell.. Lovely the beach may be, but the lack of local life and high cost of vacationing won't bring me back to this place again.. Or maybe I'm speaking too soon.. who knows? But anyway, the last irk for that evening relates to lack of local activities.. there was only 1 'cafe' at the ferry terminal and the dish of the day was.. .. cup noodles.. expensive cup noodles at that!! URGH!

... vacation anyway.. Dinner was at the Italian restaurant where our pockets had a larger hole burnt into than lunch.. though the difference in food standards kinda made up for it.. There wasn't much to do at night unless we were interested to check out the karaoke lounge so the rest of the night was spent lazing in the lobby reading newspapers and watching cable tv in the room..

... the middle of a rainforest. The riverside was also a truly spectacular sight with smart bars and eateries lining the riverfront. At the far end was a statue of Singapore's mascot the Merlion. NB! A Merlion is just as it sounds, half mermaid, half lion..... I floated along the river on a boat lit with Chinese lanterns and got off at the trendy Clarke Quay where i bought myself an ice-cream from a Turkish magician who kept pretending to hand me the ice-cream before ...

... the more persistent ones and he followed us around everywhere. Well actually, when we saw how narrow, confusing and dirty the streets were in this town, the tables were turned and we actually ended up following him. We are quite used to being stared at now, especially after China, but this placed topped it all. As we walked around, practically every single head, from every single shop or food stall, turned around and starred at us and we could frequently hear people shouting ...