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Bintan

By jeni | August 5, 2008

Bintan is for lovers. Non-American lovers. Heheh. No really, there were a ton of honeymooners in Bintan. German ones and Japanese ones and Korean ones. Not many Americans, I don’t know why. I mean I guess the obvious answer is that it’s about one million miles to Bintan from the U.S., and if you’re going to come all the way out here, you’ll probably spring for Bali (also part of Indonesia you know right?) or something. And we’re hoping to go to Bali too, but Bintan is so easy and great because it’s just such a short ferry ride away. No airports, no planes, none of that pain.

Anyway I’m getting ahead of myself. So let’s see, our ferry left at 5:00 on Friday afternoon, so John came straight from work and we met at the Tanah Merah ferry terminal. Checking is basically the same as checking at the airport, just with far less people. And of course security is much easier. We got these cool little boarding passes that were basically like a credit card with all of our info scanned in, so then when we boarded all we had to do was scan our card and then give it back to the guy helping us board the boat (and we needed help because the boat was rocking so hard in the water it was difficult to get your feet placed correctly). 

Anyway, once on the ferry, we settled in for our ride and watched some TV. I’d say there were about 300 people or so on the ferry in total. Here’s a shot of what it looks like from the inside. 

And of course the requisite holding the arm out to take a picture of the two of us sitting in the ferry shot. This is the only pic we got of the two of us together the whole time, so you’ll have to make due. My bad. 

When we got to Bintan, we expected to be “whisked away” to our hotel, as the email confirmation I’d received said we’d be. Well we ended up sitting in the van for a while waiting on some French people, but we were finally on the road and at the hotel in no time. It was beautiful. Palm trees, nice big pool, beach, all of that good stuff. Pics below. 

We spent the weekend lounging about by the pool and spent a little time on the beach, but you can’t spend too much time at the beach because they have a major problem with sandflies. They fumigate every day and provide this lotion that’s supposed to keep them away, and it’s not like there are bugs swarming everywhere or anything, but I think we both have a few bites. We also spent a nice three hour chunk getting spa treatments, which were inexpensive, but not as cheap as we hear Thailand can be. 

So, overall, my Bintan rating? I give it a 7 out of 10. The good: it’s so close, the room was fairly cheap, and it’s an awesome tropical location. The bad: you get charged for everything in American dollars, the drinks are expensive, the bed was hard, and the sandflies are annoying. For the most part though, how can I complain about spending three days with my awesome husband on the South China Sea? I can’t. It was great. Up next? Thailand. 

 

 

Oh yeah and here’s a not great video of a huge lizard that was just walking around the resort the whole time we were there. 

 

Topics: Indonesia, sightseeing, traveling | 1 Comment »

One Response to “Bintan”

  1. merlin Says:
    August 6th, 2008 at 11:42 pm

    John and Jeni-thanks for sharing your weekend with us. This reminds me of Australia. Have fun! (John- I hope your voice changes back someday.)

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