After having my breakfast and checking my backpack to make sure that I did not miss out anything, I left my house and took a bus to Lot 1 where I will be meeting Cleine & Diana. We agreed to meet at Lot 1 taxi stand at 7.15am but I went to the wrong taxi stand outside the bus interchange. How come i'm so blur that morning? Luckily there is a thing call hp otherwise we will have a hard time reaching each other.
We reached Tamah Merah Ferry Terminah at 8am and we searched for Berlian ferry counter. There is only 1 person queueing infront of us hence we do have to wait for long. We paid $45 each for the ferry ticket. At the same time, we collected our boarding pass and the immigration card. The immigration card was printed with our particulars so we do have to fill up the particulars. I remembered the last time that I went to Batam, the immigration card is also printed with our particulars. It seems like it's only for boarding of ferry that it is filled in advanced. The boarding pass is a card like the Ezlink card.The person at the counter informed us that we have to checked in at 8.45am. We decided to have something for breakfast since we have about 45min.
Berlian Ferries Counter
So many people
There is only 1 cafe at the corner of the ferry terminal near the arrival hall. There is not much food variety in the cafe. We ordered a piece of egg roti prata each and tea tarik while Diana ordered coffee. After finishing our food, it's almost time to check in.
Our breakfast
The queue is quite long but no choice, gonna queue up cos we are civilised people. We encountered 2 aunties who cut the queue in front of us . Well, we just let the aunties to cut queue since we do not want to spoiled our mood.
Celine, Diana & me in the queue
There is someone standing at the gate before the departure hall to collect our boarding pass for scanning before passing back to us. Only then we can proceed to the immigration counter. Many people are already waiting at the departure hall for boarding the ferries and we can see typical Singaporeans queuing before the gate is open. There are television screens displaying the gate for the ferries but there is only 3 gates in the departure hall. Our ferry gate is not displayed yet so we walked around the departure hall. There is 1 duty free shop and 3 food stalls.
Waiting area before the gate is open
We have to pass our boarding pass to someone standing at the ferry dock before we board the ferry. I began to feel seasick after boarding the ferry and I feel better after eating the sour plum that Diana bought. Throughout the journey, I was resting my eyes and listening to mp3.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz
Reaching Tanjong Pinang
After 2 hrs journey, we reached Tanjong Pinang at 10.15am (Indonesian time) which is 1 hour behind Singapore. I received a sms from Tracy, the contact person from Ocean Bay Resort who will be picking us up at the ferry terminal.
Tanjong Pinang ferry terminal
Other than us, there is a group of 10 guests and they board a van while the 3 of us board another van with Tracy. Tracy told us that the journey to Ocean Bay Resort is approximately an hour. I was sleeping most of time as I've already master the art of sleeping during travelling, hehe.
Tanjung Pinang town
Most of the houses there have a satellite each
Long journey
Such an old car which should be scrapped!
Coconut trees
We reached Ocean Bay Resort at around 12.15pm. We can choose either to have 2 rooms or 1 room with extra mattress. We decided to look at the room 1st before coming to a conclusion.
The room is very simple furnished with a queen bed and a table for settling our belongings. The roof is made of atap leaves. I wonder if during raining days, would there be rain drops dripping into the room?
We decided that Diana and I occupy a room and Celine occupy another room since the room area is quite small.
Bedroom
Ceiling
There is no hot shower in the bathroom and all the sewage flows into the sea.
Toilet
After settling down our belongings, we strolled to the restaurant for lunch as our stomach was calling for SOS.
In front of the rooms
Celine & I
Open-air restaurant
Restaurant counter
Restaurant counter
Waiting for our lunch to be serve
After we have taken our seats (b.t.w it's free seating), we were served coconut drinks which is cooling for such a sunny hot day. Then we were served rice, vegetable, soup, gong gong, cereal prawn n ngoh hiang.
Yummy lunch spread
After finishing our lunch, we walked around to explore the area.
Map of Bintan & Batam
We walked pass the "entertainment area" where there is a snooker table, carrom, dvd player and children playground. The karaoke room is located at another side.
Playing carrom
Entertainment area
The whole area is those typical kelong style, all are built on wooden stilts.
Wooden stilts
No hunks playing volleyball
Small fishes
Small fishes
I love swings! Miss it....
After having enough of swings, we stroll back to our room to take a nap. Saw people para-gliding nearby.
Para-gliding
There are 33 rooms with 16 rooms facing west and 17 rooms facing east. In the centre is an enclosed pond for fishing. Before returning to our room, we stroll around the pond.
Paranomic view
Hairs all messed up by the sea breeze
Mahjong house
We were resting outside our room as there are 2 chairs outside every room. It is completely away from the bustling city here, the time seems to stop.
Enjoying the sea breeze
At around 2.45pm, Andy - the person whom I liase with in Singapore informed us that there is island hopping to nearby island. So we changed into our swimwear and off we go.
The boat ride was so rocky that I afraid that the boat may overturn cos it's really swinging heavily. Most of us are almost wet from head to toe because of the ride.
Fisherman
I like the sea colour....
Reaching the island
We reach the island safety
We spent about 3 hours on the island. It's a deserted island as there are no inhabitants. We thought of snorkeling but to my disappointment, there are no fishes. So we just swim around, soak in the sea water and play with sea water.
Wat pose is this???
Gals, gonna grow up....
Camouflage
Taking a snap while sun tanning
Finally the boat departed at 5pm and we returned back to the kelong.
The group of families staying opposite us
Sunset
Andy called us to see the fishes that were caught by the fisherman.
Fishes everywhere
We had BBQ food for dinner which is BBQ by the staff. We thought that we get to BBQ the food ourselves. There is sotong, prawn, fish, sweet corn, otak, chicken wings and fried rice. I like the sotong most, the sweet corn is so dried that nobody eat it.
Self service
BBQ food
After finishing our dinner, we were thinking of what to do next. While walking passed the entertainment area, we decided to watch DVD since there is not much variety of entertainment. We watched the Korean movie "200 Pounds Beauty" which is quite a hilarious movie. It is very touching at the end.
Although it's quite cooling at night but our rooms are so warm even after we switched on the fan. We have to sleep with it as we also cant opened the door during our sleep.
2 comments:
Ken i just check with u is the food in sgd or rupiah?? coz we went to the yasin bungalow, everything is in RP.
Hi, everything is in SGD. U can refer to the prologue of this trip for the amount.
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