Friday was a long day, dedicated to preparing for our weekend in Indonesia and getting my Vietnam visa finalized. There were three of us going, Myself, Alma, and Maria. We all split up to get various tasks accomplished and met up at the ferry port later in the day. Alma texted me, she had gotten stopped by the police on the MRT. Apparently, one girl carrying two bag packs is suspicious, and they had her open her bags to go through her things. Singapore is always worried about terrorists. In 2001, they foiled a plot believed to be planned by AL-Qaeda to bomb the US, UK, and Israeli embassies in Singapore. There are always signs and announcements on the MRT and buses to beware of suspicious activity to stop terrorists. They have TV screens at some MRT stops that let you know when the next train will arrive, and they also have a like 5-step how to spot a terrorist and what to do if there is an attack video. They also have commercials showing the wreckage of other world wide train bombing with captions such as "Don't let this happen to us" as if Singapore is too smart to get bombed like this.
I was having issues with my bag on the way to the ferry, the strap broke!! In panic without a working purse, I stopped by Orchard, which is pretty much an entire country-sized area that is one huge shopping plaza and found a Fossil. I bought a nice leather cross-shoulder bag. The lady found out I was from the US and kind of laughed, reminding me that I had just over-paid for a bag that was imported from my home country. But then again (as I'm angry in the MRT thinking how right she is), everything is imported from Singapore. There is nothing made here, no even beer. Import is their trade, and they are very good at it.
On the way to the ferry, the bus passed by the Changi Naval Base, which is where Singapore's Navy hangs. I ran into some Navy guys on Wednesday night while we were out. We were at this bar and I saw some crew cuts with a guy wearing a 550 chord bracelet. Only the US Military! Turns out that some Navy vessels had made port and many of the crew was out that night, as we ran into several as the night unfolded. They all assumed we were in the Navy and wanted to know which ship we were from. I also saw a sign for the SAF Yacht Club. I started laughing, Singapore Air Force has a yacht club! But It's not SAF, its RSAF, Republic of Singapore AF. Still kind of funny though :) The east coast, where the ferry terminal and all this is at, must be the "nice" part of the island. There were houses instead of apartment rises like where we are on the west coast. There was also a large number of golf courses, one which is going to hold the Women's World Gulf Championship here in a week or so.
We had booked rooms at a guesthouse about an hour outside of the ferry port on the east side of Bintan Island (larger than Singapore) which was pretty much near nothing. We took the Bintan Resorts Ferry, however, because of its location and timing convenience. We were the small group of backpackers in a sea of rich vacationers. Bintan Resorts is a resort community filled with every luxury that shouldn't be found on a remote island and where you do anything for the right amount of money. It was a short, yet terribly choppy ride, and with only one of us to get sick, we were glad to make it there quickly!
It was night when we made port, and our guesthouse pick-up had a sign with my name on it as we exited, it was kind of neat! He stopped us by a local hawkers area, (food vendors) since we hadn't had dinner. This was foreign country territory. We were all stared at the whole entire time, hard core, but everyone was nice. WE then continued on our hour journey going well over the speed limit in pitch black roads with no lights, honking as we passed everyone on our 2 lane highway. It was the foreign familiarity I have seen in many countries I have traveled to. Long story short, Maria was without a room due to come lat minute issues with other people coming. We figured she can just stay with us, just wonder on in and crash in one of our beds. Boy, we were wrong.
We pulled off the road almost onto the beach. There were 6 buildings. By buildings I mean hand made huts. One was the kitchen, 4 were the huts you can rent, which hold mattresses and mosquito nets, and the third was the longhouse, where we stayed. It had a porch with a picnic table and a hand made sofa, and a room with a lock-n-key door with a bunk bed, which was our room. There was only 2 other people there on this multi-acre coconut plantation guesthouse we were staying at, so we legally got Maria a mattress on our floor for the equivalent of 3USD/night!
This was the absolute most BEAUTIFUL place I have ever seen. Minus the tiny rooms, everything was completely outdoors. It was surrounded by coconut trees, had a few picnic tables, and more hammocks than beds. We could see the beach from out porch in the Longhouse. Since we stayed on the part of the island where nobody (as in tourists) stayed, it was am empty beach. There were little huts without walls on the beach, that Fazli (the manager/tour guide) told us they put up sheets and made tents when they were over booked, like for CNY. They were literally 3 feet from the sand and water of the beach. There was a full moon this weekend, so the fact that there was only generator run electricity from 6-11pm every day didn't bother us when we made the walk to the beach in the middle of the night. We befriended the other two guests, a UK boy and a UK man working in Singapore. They had two dogs, Toby and Raymond (4 month old puppy!) who were both girls. There was also no running water; the toilets were squat pots you hand poured in water from a tub of water in the bathroom to flush. The shower in one bathroom was a large sink-like tub which you ladled water onto yourself, and the other was a hose-shower head that used pressure to push water out, which only drizzled from the shower head. It was awesome! We had really found a remote paradise for "slow tourism"
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