Why it had to be Bintan island?
"Where shall we go in the spring vacation? Because I was very busy in February so I want to relax in an island of the south, but have been to Hawaii before and also went to Guam in Christmas time. Australia is far a little bit, New Caledonia is a good place but the flight is limited. Hoom..."
It was when I was searching the leaflet of the tour information at travel agency or in Internet, that the name of Bintan came into my sight on TV introducing the trip program. It said that the island is near Singapore, becoming more popular resort place recently because the Indonesian government cooperates with the Singapore government to promote development for exclusive resort use. And the name was found again at the leaflet of a travel agency in nearby JUSCO supermarket. I saw the price was reasonable, I decided to make the application right away when there is a vacancy. It was possible to select the type of hotel between the resort hotel and the cottage, where is located at the very sea front. My choice was of course the cottage! The trip to the island is 4-night -5-day including the sightseeing in Singapore.
We left Narita in the evening on March 25th and arrived in Singapore at midnight after 7 hours flight. After staying at ALL NIPPON AIRWAYS hotel we started with Singapore city sightseeing next morning, visit to China town, Islam temples, famous Mar-lion etc. then we took ferry boat to the island in the evening. We had to pass immigration when we got out of the ship, because the ferryboat crossed the border even during 45 minutes of navigation, and then we ware in the Indonesian territory. The local time is one hour behind than that of Singapore although it is the same as Singapore in terms of longitude, and additionally Singapore is one hour behind than Japan, namely the time difference is two hours from Japan. The hotel bus passengers were only Japanese and it was only us that took to "The Nirwana resort villa" while all the other passengers have gotten off at the first stop at "The Nirwana garden hotel". From the entrance, we already could see the beautiful beach spreads over behind the lobby, where cool wind goes through. After finishing the check-in, the staff took us to a cottage with the electric golf cart. All the cottages were facing to the private beach of only tens meter away from the sea. The whole Nirwana resort including cottages and hotel are in the peninsula, completely preserved by the gate on the road. We noticed the guard personnel who got on the motorbike and patrol car were patrolling site inside regularly. Also, number of the staff is plenty, even doing cleaning from the corner to corner of the beach every evening. Because there was some time left to sunset yet, we jumped into the sea of the silkworm water! A relaxed resort experience have just began!!
Dinner was taken in a restaurant inside the control ridge, where refreshing wind goes through under the ceiling. I have chosen the course with various special Indonesian style meal because it was the first Indonesia cooking for my wife and child. The drink had to be the Bintan beer, of which the taste is rather light but suit exactly in a local climate.
It was fine in the next morning. Because sunlight is very strong, so we enjoyed snorkeling and jet-ski after breakfast and had a rest in the middle of daytime. Snorkeling in a lagoon (a coral reef) on the right side of the bay, we could see coral and beautiful fish. Jet-ski, yacht, windsurfing, canoe etc. are available at the activity center of the beach. No license was necessary for jet-ski and could freely go around 3 buoys after receiving simple explanation how to drive it from a guide, who were watching us from distance. Taking a shower, a nap, reading a book under coconut palm, looking at blue sea, white sand, really a relaxed time we spent.
We took Indonesian chow-mien and sandwich with beer from the room service menu for lunch.
The dinner of the 2nd day, we got on the shuttle bus that is patrolling inside the site and went to the hotel and enjoyed the Thailand style seafood pot in the garden restaurant. Although the local currency is a rupee, because the place is in the Indonesian territory, but the list of charges of the hotel were displayed with Singapore dollar and can be paid out with Singapore dollar cash. However, it is settled with a rupee properly only paid by credit card.
There is a television set in the cottage and the satellite broadcast of NHK for the foreign country is being netted other than the local broadcast so that we sometime get lost at a moment when I was listening the NHK 7'ockloc morning news.
The 3rd day, our son and a boy of German family who was staying at the nextdoor cottage became a friend and found to be the same age. They together played in the sea and enjoyed rental yacht cruising. Since the boy has even a small yacht in his home country and therefore he was getting used to the operation very well. The both mother chattered and exchanged the mail address mutually and were promising future interchange.
For the dinner of the last night in Bintan island, we went to a seafood restaurant to make it a little gorgeously. It is on the pier and whole restaurant is on the sea. Customer can choose the fish from seawater pond and can designate cooking method. We ordered Nasi-Golen(fried rice), fried fish with soy sauce and a crab. Though it was possible to make a fish for Sashimi but it may not be so good with the fish of the warm sea probably, thus it has been chosen in the Chinese-style.
The 4th day, even the enjoyable Bintan island stay was coming to the end. I tried windsurfing for the first time. After spending time actively and then returned to Singapore in the evening. Before going to the airport, we went to a shopping center to have light dinner at food coat. It is a very friendly place offering Chinese-style food, Indian cooking, Malay cooking and Western-style, needless to say.
We left there being satisfied and then took the way home.
