evesamuelsson

How can I start to explain this complex weekend? This weekend has been full of excitement, horror, panic, laughter and amazing views.

Everything started on Friday when we took our bags and headed to the ferry terminal. Due to lack of information we didn’t have the right documents and were almost prohibited to leave Singapore. Finally we took the ferry and arrived to Indonesia, where we quickly found out that we took the wrong ferry since our hotel was located on the complete opposite side of the island.

A lot poorer, but still with a good feeling we took a taxi to our hotel which according to the driver was supposed to be in the “city” of Bintan. A really cool place close to nice beaches. NOT!!!

When we arrived to the hotel we clearly understood that they were not used to foreign customers since they didn’t speak a word in English. When we asked them about the beach they looked very surprised and after very much body language and gestures we found out that the beach were 40 minutes away with taxi. (WHAT?)

We therefore decided to spend the afternoon by the pool and take a nice dinner in the city and go to the sea the next day. But of course our hopes were too high… there was no city. It was the poorest, dirtiest village consisting of farmers and inhabitants that probably never saw a blond person in their life before. We also found out it was really dangerous to walk around the town and to be careful not to be robbed.

Luckily we ordered a cab from the hotel to take us to the “crème de la crème” restaurant of the town, a seafood restaurant down by the water. The food was very good, but the entire situation was very uncomfortable. To add; neither of our telephones were working which didn’t help the comfort of the trip.

On Saturday morning we were positive and happy again to take the taxi to the beach. Wrong again!! When the taxi driver stopped to drop us off I instantly grabbed Nicos arm with the expression of; Im not leaving the car!!!

There were NO sunbeds, NO food place, NO place to find water, NO people or civilization nearby, but only a few dogs and the sea with sand.....



local seafood restaurant= very tasty


opposite the seafood restaurant= not so classy

To make the story short we luckily found a resort to spend the day at, and we ended up having a great day and evening. I splurged myself with a foot massage and we drank fruit drinks in the sun, enjoying being around other tourists and the sea.. Finally the Indonesia we were hoping for. We spent the evening in the resort with a lovely dinner and a delicious Indonesian specialty; avocado juice with chocolate.

Sunday morning we had to take another taxi (fact: budget broke due to taxis!!) to go towards the other side of the island. Since our ferry departed late on Sunday night we spent our day in a WONDERFUL resort. The day was fantastic and consisted of lunch buffet, coconuts on the beach, bathing, taking sun and enjoying life to the maximum. 

where i took some foot massage












avocado juice (delicious)



the "real" Bintan

















In the end we had a great weekend, and we even appreciated more since we knew how poor and shitty the life situation was on the island outside the resorts. We tried everything possible on the island and went home really pleased and acknowledge.