Bintan has several resorts on the northwest coast of the island which was leased by Singapore to build resorts for the Singaporeans. Staying at the resort were people of all colors, Chinese, Indian and many white people but we didn’t hear another American accent during the weekend. The people of Bintan are friendly welcoming people and more than ready to help with our lack of knowledge of local customs. The currency in Indonesia is the Rupiah – 9,565 Rupiah = $1 US - too complicated for our math minds, so luckily you could charge everything to the room and the total converted to US dollars at checkout.
The beach has soft white sand, palm trees and warm clear water and there are several beautiful golf courses on the island. It’s quite hot playing golf but everyone rides and has a caddy who rides on the back on the cart.
Friday evening we had dinner on the beach with a nice bottle of wine while being serenaded by a quartet of island singers whose repertoire included the Beatles, Tom Jones and Marty Robbins – very eclectic!
Saturday, we sat under the thatched umbrella all day enjoying the breeze, scenery and margaritas. Then back in our room we discovered that we were totally sunburned. Even with sunscreen and sitting in the shade, white people get totally fried sitting near the equator by the South China Sea!
We did book an early ferry home since sitting on the beach again today was not an option and now we are back in Singapore, an unusual shade of pink in our wonderfully air-conditioned apartment!
The beach, shore, coast...whatever they call it is beautiful!! Sounds like the sun is a little more intense then the Alabama sun, but it does answer the question of "Who buys SPF 80"?
ReplyDeleteHeard you were at the Game last night, good to have you over, too bad I couldn't offer you a glass of wine!
The posts are great, thanks for sharing!