Weekend in Indonesia

This weekend we thought we'd get straight into a bit of travelling and head to Bintan, an Indonesian island.

Bintan's only a 55min catamaran ride away, but you need to do the whole immigration/customs thing at both ends as it's a different country after all. So it's kind of like heading over to Great Barrier Island in Auckland, but with a few more hassles.

Talking of hassles, you're always queuing in Singapore and we have realised that there are tactical issues for dealing with this. You need to queue up for everything - your ferry ticket, immigration, customs, getting on the ferry, taxis, getting on coach buses etc. What the Singaporeans do is rush (even run) toward the closest seats to the door/desk/taxi rank etc, and then as it get closer to the time of arrival/departure/opening time, people start crowding toward the target area and then surge forward when the doors open.

People don't mind queue hopping either (though there are officials stationed near by to bring the queue into a single line from time to time, when things get out of hand). So anyway, we thought 'when in Rome' and joined in with gusto. First we queue hopped to get on the ferry and then pretty much sprinted to get a choice seat, and then on the way back, we did another speed-walk number to get at the front of the immigration queue. I can tell we're going to fit in no problem.

Finally, on the ferry.

Soon we arrived in Bintan, laboured through Indonesian immigration and were whisked off to Bintan Lagoon Resort. Bintan is a small island that is pretty much entirely made up of resorts and golf courses. People mostly go there from Singapore to relax, play golf and enjoy the beautiful beaches.

That's more like it, we've found the pool (one of them anyway) and the cocktails

I knew I shouldn't have had that second cocktail

When we arrived we headed out to the main pool for some delicious fajitas, cocktails and a little R&R. The pool was my kind of pool - a beautiful temperature, no arctic shock and hyperventilation when you dive in there! The pools are set amongst beautiful gardens with little bridges, palm trees and bars you can swim up to. The cocktails were big, exciting and cheap by NZ standards.

Blake made friends with the resident pool lizard - a water monitor (someone said), but it looked more like a baby Komodo dragon to us. The bar staff were feeding him scraps, and gave Blake some bacon rind to feed it - which he did, very tentatively, due to it's impressive talons and rapid movements.

This little fella hangs out around the pool and in the gardens around the pool, sometimes coming right up next to you and even taking a dip IN the pool. He did a nice little mound of poo just on the water's edge, right along the pool from Blake - lovely.

Then we headed to the beach. 100 metres away. The beach was beautiful too, with little gazebo things you can lounge under and beautiful temperate water again.

There were loads of leisure activities you can do in and out of the water but as it's monsoon season, we couldn't snorkel as there were too many waves - but that made it perfect for boogie boarding! So we spent the afternoon going nuts in the waves, which were quite full on and lots of fun. Unfortunately we didn't get any photos because we were too busy in the water.

I was so delighted by the waves and the warm water (i usually won't go in the sea in NZ 'cause it's so freezing) that I boogie boarded for hours, until my torso was so sore from the board that i had to come in. I now have a grazes all along both sides of my rib cage, but it was worth it.

That night we enjoyed a sumptuous buffet, for a very reasonable price - Indonesia is much cheaper than Singapore! I had prawns and Blake had snapper (they were both amazing), and there was a massive buffet of salads, side dishes, soups, breads and desserts. We were fit to burst by the end of the night. Here we are enjoying our night.

The bike tour:

The next day we were keen for some action so we headed off on a bike tour round the island, with our guide John. We set off at 9am, but it was already quite hot. We're not sure if John usually takes a lot of these tours, or if he's used to fat americans, but he wasn't particularly fit.

It's true that Blake did burn up the hills at a rate of knots, and I chugged along steadily some distance behind him - but poor old John had to dismount several times and wheel his bike up the hills. Blake found this very funny and I had to keep insisting that we wait for him as the poor guy must have been fairly embarrassed!

Blake with John, our guide.

A break at one of the golf courses

We stopped off at various other resorts and spots along the way and it was a great way to tour the island. We saw some spectacular golf courses and stopped at some of the clubhouses for a break. We were soaking with sweat due to the heat, the hills (there were lots) and the pace Blake was setting. Perfect for a dip in the sea, if you're suitably attired.

Here we are at the 10th hole - at the 'Halfway house' clubroom

Blake takes a dip at the beach beside Halfway House

It was a fantastic weekend, we packed heaps of things into it and we felt like we were away for more than just two days. We can't wait to head off somewhere else soon!