Bintan, Indo

On Saturday I went to Bintan, Indonesia w/ some friends I've met here in Singapore: Beth, Jane and James. James has been living in Singapore for 14 years and is fluent in Bahasa which made it really easy for us to get around and have a really good time. (I had mistakenly though we were going to Batam. Both are islands just SE of Singapore and it takes only about an hour ferry ride to get to them). We went to the very far eastern side of the island near Trikora Beach and found some shacks right on the beach that James had been going to for years. James used to stay at this place run by Mr Lobo. If you want to reserve it, "just send an SMS"...Lobo says it's easier than calling him. We actually stayed at a place next door since Mr. Lobo's place was all full... probably because he started a website a few years ago. James was really floored that there was a website and you could make reservations since he had been going to this same place for like 10 years...long before they were on the net. The room out at the end over the water was were I stayed.

It was such a relaxing trip and we just laid around the beach most of the time and got tan. It was funny to think that just one week before I was snowboarding in a blizzard in Tahoe, California. Then at this beach, the water was almost too warm to cool you off after being in the sun! It really is such a small world now.

This is the beach with our shacks

Some beach huts on Trikora Beach

For 'dinner' the host went out with a few others to catch some crab and fish right off the beach when the tide was low. We didn't actually eat these ones but I think he did for dinner that night

Some dog hanging out at the beach with us

Some wild school kids. Some of these kids really go wild when you talk a picture of them then show it to them on the LCD display. They really like it since I guess no one every bothers to take a picture of them.

We ended up staying an extra day since all the ferries were filled w/ people returning to Singapore after Chinese New Year and we hadn't reserved seats. The last night we stayed in Tanjung Pinang which turned out to be pretty good thing. We had a lot of good Indonesian food, took a tour of the harbor by boat, and a tour of the city by motor scooter. For not really knowing what I was getting in to when this vacation started, it turned out to be one of the best trips I've been on. It was nice to really relax and forget about everything for a few days and it also made me want to go back to other parts of Indonesia. I'll have to actually do some reserach and plan another trip. Once I get my other pictures from the trip in order I'll post a link to them as well.