[Swooper]

It was Chinese New Year 2 0 1 0 !!! Wanted to plan somewhere out. Work was hectic the last few months and we defenitely needed a break. A break that can make us relax, make us focus back on our jobs when we return. Deciding a destination with so much options around you and so less budget means its rather confusing. But we desperately wanted to get out from our current place. Our stress forced us so.

Candidates: 3 Idiots
Duration: 2 Days
Location: Only our prayers can answer that

We prayed to god and got answered us to have an exotic journey

To continue ...

[Swooper]

God atlast answered and we were blessed with a beautiful location. Here we go with a shuffled Index of the vacation.

Keep an eye on this space ... More to come ...

[Swooper]

BINTAN it is. It is an island in Riau island province of Indonesia. Lying south east of Singapore is this little island. One of the oldest trading routes between china and India, Bintan was a docking post. It was famously called as the "Pirate Island" as lots of Malay pirates used to loot the trading ships sailing thru this route.

It was a 45 minutes ferry ride from Singapore Tanah Merah ferry terminal. Indonesia does not require a previsa and can be availed on arrival. North Bintan possess lots of star resorts and since ours was a budget trip we decided to explore the east end of the islands. Too our surprise, comparatively the best part was the east although we visited the star resorts in the north later in our trip.

Few facts

-> Indonesian currency "Rupiah" is a weak note. 1 Indian rupee = 196.63964 Indonesian rupiahs. PERIOD. So you may have ample money to spend for the less you carry. We carried some Singapore dollar (we guys are working in Singapore). So that ended like 1 Singapore dollar = 6828.63063 Indonesian rupiahs. PERIOD.

-> Although Bintan is an Indonesian Island, Singapore has a bit of its share and even stretches of some 20 KM are under the maintenance control of Singapore. We were able to see a lot of Singapore based factories in this stretch and this stretch maintained by Singapore had the best roads like in Singapore.

-> Petrol/Diesel. These are Alien words in the island. They call it as "Benzene" and are available only in small petty shops. We couldn’t spot any Benzene bunks anywhere on the roads

->Bintan is a major beach hub for Singaporeans due to its weak money. (The bills brought us smile all thru the trip)
-> Water sports are one of the main attractions due to its shallow waters along the beaches.

and now few random snaps to talk ...

[Fordmanchau]

Hey Swooper,
Awesome start for the travelogue, the first two posts are awesome, creativity at the best, and did you pen that prayer yourself?? that was fantastic too.
You guys had a lot of fun it seems. Nice snaps too.
Hope to see more updates soon enough.

[nomadabhi]

Amazing start of the log. Among all I would rate the very first pic as BEST.
Awaiting for more pics.

[Swooper]

From Singapore to Bintan, we travelled in a ferry (To and Fro ride costs 45 SGD). Since Indonesia travel just requires a visa on arrival, we need to get one on our arrival at Bintan ferry station. For 3 day multiple entry visa, the price was 15 SGD. As I said before since staying in North Bintan was a bit expensive since only 3 to 5 star resorts alone were available, we decided to head over to east Bintan. Of course some google was required to know what’s there in the east. From the ferry station to East coast it was a 2 hours’ drive. We hired a SUV and headed towards east.

There is where we came across fuel bunks. Do we need to call it a bunk or a petty shop? It’s precise to call as petty shop. Similar to our ration shops in India. We was amazed to see a BMW filling Benzene in that shop when our SUV reached there for its turn.

From ferry station towards the east road, nearly 20 KM stretch was under the maintenance control of Singapore government which was fairly well maintained with nice roads, dividers and proper reflectors. After this stretch it was just ok. Nothing was level land and ups and downs all thru the way. I had a very heavy hot dog in the ferry which I puked on the bend roads.

We reached the east coast in 2 hours and then the fun started...
Pic 1 is the benzene shop

[Swooper]

Food is something which was not up to our taste. Indonesian foods are usually less spicy. Our tasty buds were eager to have something in good taste which was not fulfilled in the entire trip. We even hired bikes to explore a better place to eat. We ended up in a local grocery shop where we shopped some biscuits, kitkat, pista buns. We were taking whatever looks familiar to us and that became our first day’s dinner.

If you are a vegetarian, things get worse. In the entire trip we was able to survive only with fried chickens.

At once instance in our resort, the waiter conveyed that fresh fish is available. We ordered and it was really fresh. Really fresh in the sense that nothing was cleaned, not even the fins were taken out. It was a fresh that they have caught a fish, applied salt, dipped in oil and then straight served us. We were all smiling at each other seeing the so called "fresh fish"

Snaps of some dishes we were served and the bikes we hired to hunt some food...