Adventure in Bintan

See my Best of Bintan Photos here

Quinn and I spent 24 hours in both the rain and the sun in Bintan, Indonesia. It was a difficult but exciting trip, made all the more so because we were two young caucasian females travelling alone in a country that speaks almost no english. As soon as we were on our way out of the ferry terminal -- before we were even on the streets of Tanjung Pinang -- we were swarmed by people asking us where we were going, how they could help, and if we needed a ride. Quinn had been told that many of the "taxi" services aren't legitimate, and that to find a real taxi you need to find a stand somewhere. We saw only one and decided to keep looking around. As we walked the streets all we heard was "Hello Miss! Where you going? You need taxi?" At first I would smile and say no thanks, and after a while I realized that it would be much easier to say no thanks in Malay. Just saying so in english didn't do much to discourage the people. Eventually we came to just ignore them, and when that didn't do much good either, I began saying that we already had a ride. I found out that if we told them we knew where we were going and that we already had plans they backed off pretty quickly. Also, if anyone asked if we had ever been to Indonesia before I responded that we had. There was no way I was going to tell them that I really had no clue where I was or where I was trying to go.

That was the other thing -- we had no idea where we were supposed to go or where we could stay once we got there. A few others from NTU had left Friday or earlier Saturday morning so we figured we could just find them and go from there. We had to ask lots of questions when we got to the island, and I think that's a mistake also. Asking too many questions gives the impression that you don't know what you are doing and makes you very vulnerable to the locals. A few questions is fine and if often neccessary, but there is certainly a limit as to how many and what kinds of questions you should ask.

The language barrier reared its ugly head once again when our taxi driver dropped us off at the wrong place. He took us to Bintan Agro Resort which is different than Bintan Agro Beach Resort, our desired location. It took about 30 minutes at Bintan Agro Resort for him to communicate to a woman in the office and her to communicate back to us what the confusion was. We ended up having to give him an extra 10,000 rupiahs to take us to where we wanted to go in the first place.

Upon arriving at Bintan Agro Beach we were greeted by lots and lots of rain. We grabbed some dinner and since there wasn't much else to do I got an Oceanic Massage. It was just what I needed -- 90 minutes of a full body exfoliating massage. I got pretty sunburned in Tioman and my skin was still peeling so this did wonders to rejuvenate my skin and get rid of all those dead cells.

Sunday morning we wanted to get up to see the sunrise, but didn't have an alarm clock. I was hoping my internal clock would work, and it worked almost too well -- I woke up at 2:00, 4:00, and finally at 6:00, just after the sunrise had begun. It was a very cloudy morning so we didn't have such a nice view.

Sunday morning was very sunny so we chose to spend the time at the beach. The beach where our bungalow was on the main island wasn't so great for swimming -- lots of mud and muddy water -- so we had to take a boat to White Sands Island which took us less than 10 minutes to get there. Quinn and I were the only ones on the beach and it was gorgeous! White sands, clear blue waters, and not a thing in the water to step on when swimming. Sure beats -35F weather in Wisconsin right now ...

We left the beach just as it started to rain. We took a taxi back to Tanjung Pinang to shop for a while. I spent IDR900 (less than US$0.10) on some stationary that says "I beliave in you and me. I belive that we will be and love eternally well as fat as I can see." Typos and all. I gave her a IDR1000 bill and instead of giving me a coin worth 100 she gave me a mentos for change. I was actually quite happy because I had been wanting a mint of some sort.

Getting our ferry tickets home was a huge pain -- again because of the language barrier. We were told by the resort that our tickets would be waiting for us at the ferry terminal, but when we asked people there nobody knew where to get them. The resort had taken our departure tickets and our embarkation cards, so the only proof I had of the ticket was my receipt from back in Singapore. We asked everyone we could find there if they knew anything, and finally after about an hour they called the resort to find out. We were told someone would come at 6:00 and we had to wait until then. We didn't have much of a choice so we waited at the terminal while one of the "guards" stood next to us and bascially stared at us the whole time. Thank god a bus from the resort came full of people we recognized, and also with a woman who got our tickets for us! I really wasn't ready to spend a night stranded in Indonesia.

So the trip was quite an interesting one, and I learned a lot of important lessons. First and foremost, my idea of flying to China and backpacking to Singapore all by myself probably isn't the greatest and certainly not the safest idea. If Quinn and I had that much trouble travelling as two females I can't imagine how much I would run into if I was all alone. And while many people in touristy places speak english it's much more difficult to communicate in rural areas. If I were to backpack I would be spending quite a bit of time in those places and would have no way to communicate with anybody. So right now it's looking like India with Cory and Nani!