Woo hoo a weekend away! This time I'm off to Bintan to celebrate two friends’ birthdays.
In typical Friday afternoon rush hour in Singapore it starts to rain and of course not a taxi around.....I have purposely booked an 8pm ferry (on Friday, March 21, 2014) so did have time on my hands.
After a slow crawl I finally arrive at the ferry terminal - very glad that it was wet and I didn't arrive any earlier as it's not exactly exciting. On check-in I'm told there are still seats in Emerald Class and I would like to upgrade; sure why not. Means a seat upstairs, more space, a drink and being able to leave the boat first once we dock.
On boarding I'm amazed that the boat is moving so much, hoping that once we depart it will calm down a bit. Unfortunately that isn't the case, after 20 minutes the rolling starts - all that goes through my head is it's a one hour journey it's a one hour journey.
On arrival into Bintan I'm very glad I upgraded as it means I can get off the boat first - yah dry land. Thankfully I have two nights here before I have to get back onto the boat!
Getting through immigration is painless with my APEC card, after my bags go through security (not sure what I could have added to them, other than duty free, since I left the ferry terminal in Singapore??!) I'm free and into Bintan. My hotel has free transportation to and from the ferry pier, saves me the hassle of working out how to get a taxi.
After check-in I meet up with Sarah and Isabel for a couple of hours; sitting outside with the beautiful ocean breeze and next to no noise is heaven. Shame I'm just here for 2 nights.
Saturday morning I wake early, I hadn't closed my wooden blinds properly. It probably was good as I wanted to go for a run before meeting the others for breakfast at 9.30am. Must remember to close them correctly tonight!
Eeks what was I thinking - it's crazy hilly here!!! At least now I'm ready for the day.
The rest of the group arrived while I was out running – they have 5 hours to wait until their check-in, drinking by the poolbar while they waited made perfect sense.
I was slightly more sensible, after breakfast I waited to the big hand said 12.
What could be a better way to escape the heat than taking a nice cool dip in the pool with chilled drinks in our hands? Between the 10 of us we had 2 bottles of Grey Goose, 3 Veuves, a bottle of Tequila, Gin, and 3 bottles of wine? We were well stocked up on booze, but I was mildly horrified to think we would consume all that alcohol over the course of the day! (Hello coconut water and Panadol tonight!)
Feeling lucky we wouldn't be caught, we smuggled most of our alcohol to the poor bar. Over the next few hours, we ordered rounds of lemonades and tonic waters and poured our booze in our lemonades in the corner. Not exactly the most elegant way to make a drink but we were saving hundreds of dollars! It may sound silly, but due to the incredibly high prices of alcoholic drinks at the resort, it was a brilliant plan. A fair few pina colada’s were also ordered!! We were also extremely lucky the barman at the pool was a kind and patient man, he pretty much turned a blind eye to what was happening and only asked we paid corkage for 3 bottles for $90. Bargain! After hours of drinking in the hot sun, it was a miracle we all made it to the poolside bbq at 6:30. We were all abit wrecked and tired from the poolside fun but the food at the meat station picked everyone back up! After devouring kilos of lamb chops and satay sticks, we were again ready for more debauchery - it was time to pop open the bubbly!
We had smuggled the bottles of Veuve into dinner, keeping it hidden under the table. Before we knew it, we all emptied our water glasses and replaced it with champagne....well done to us for getting away with it!
Sunday morning after a wee sleep in its time to get up and head to breakfast. I'm taking the 3.30pm boat back to Singapore so still have a few hours to relax.
Today is basically all blue sky, I'm so pleased yesterday wasn't like this otherwise I know I would be red red red.
Special thanks to Phen for being a guest writer for this blog.
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