It's SingTime

Trip: Indonesia – Weekend On Bintan Island

© by Agnieszka Soska
May 31, 2006 on 11:31 am | In Aga's Blog, Patric's Blog, Trip
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So finally we can be proud of “beautiful” stamps in our passports that we got from Indonesian immigration officers . Apart from the stamps, there is also a big, one page-size visa that we had to apply for in order to spend a weekend on Bintan – an Indonesian island neigboring directly (1 hour trip by catamaran from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal) with Singapore.

Unless you stay longer than 7 days, you pay only 10 USD for the Indonesian visa. A longer holiday in this country costs you about 3 times more.

The 2 day stay at Nirwana Gardens Resort belonged to those very relaxing, pleasant weekends when you enjoy doing nothing but swimming in a nice pool, walking up and down the beach and having some delicious food (a huge buffet with meat and sea food variety on Saturday evening and a delicious breakfast on Sunday morning ). It was also one of the 2 weekends when Verena – our friend from Tübingen – Patric’s home town is visitng us. Despite some funny typical clichés , which so many of us bring over from very distant and different Europe, she is getting more and more open to the Asian culture and its citizens and obviously enjoying her stay here in Singapore very very much !

The only chance to get a little more active during our stay – wakeboarding offered by the sport club at the nearby ManaMana Resort – was blown away by the windy and cloudy Sunday weather . Well, since that was something we definitely could not change, we continued enjoying the sweet laziness .

Bintan is very close to paradise … very nice beach, clean transparent water, beautiful hotels … perfect for a relaxing and not too challenging holiday close to Singapore, but … still far away from the real paradise like the Perhentian Island in North-East Malaysia where we spend delightful 3 days at the beginning of our stay in Asia.

More photos will follow soon!