Beautiful Bintan: The Real Deal

For our second day in Bintan, we had every intention of repeating the first day by spending hours at the beach. However, the day turned out to be quite a bit different than we'd imagined. See, we had heard of this cute little shopping village just a few minutes from the resort (think souvenirs and a good place to get a massage for far less than the resorts will charge you) so as we were headed down to the beach we stopped by the host desk to ask about getting to the village. Our plan was to go there for an hour or so in the afternoon...but one hour turned into NINE well spent hours touring the entire island! The resort host convinced us to hire a car and driver to take us around the island, and since we were both interested in seeing life outside the "resort bubble" we decided to go for it! So at 9:30 a.m., Jemmi, our driver, picked us up at the Angsana and we set off for a day of exploring. To say the least, the day was AMAZING...but to say a lot more (which you know I will!) it was a completely eye-opening experience that made us so very thankful for the things we have. Jemmi started the day by driving us along the coast through an extremely poor village and then to several beaches (Tri Kora 4, 3 and 2...never made it to 1) where the locals hang out. At Tri Kora 4, we drank from a fresh coconut while chatting with the locals, with Jemmi as our translator as they all spoke Bahasa Indo. At Tri Kora 3, we saw the prettiest beach we've ever seen...in fact, it was so pretty that Matt decided to swim in the ocean even though it was pouring rain! At Tri Kora 2 we stopped to have a look at the house boats - literally houses that people live in to fish from the open sea. Once we left the beaches we drove to a small fishing village then made our way to the city of Tanjung Pinang. We ate lunch in TP and then rode in a tiny wooden boat (I swear, I felt like it was going to fall apart right there in the ocean!) to the island of Penyengat which is made up for mostly Muslims. We visited the grave site of Sultan Haji and all of his royal family members. After we left Penyengat, we got back into our water taxi and checked out Serrangang where we looked through a few Buddhist temples and statues. By the time we got back to Tanjung Pinang, we were exhausted and ready to call it a day...so 9 hours after we left the hotel, Jemmi dropped us back off at the Angsana. Though nothing close to the day we originally had planned, we absolutely loved the island tour and feel so grateful for the time we spent with Jemmi and all the friends we met along the way :-)

The first thing Jemmi did on our tour was fill up on gas...but with a modern gas station no where to be found, he did the next best thing! (This is not Jemmi, its just the guy he bought the gas from.)

As Jemmi was getting gas, we noticed several young children giggling at the site of Matt (they weren't used to seeing Americans). We walked over toward them and found out they were actually about to start Sunday school class! We were excited to find out it was a small, one room Christian church. The pastor and his wife invited us in and we sat with the kids as they sang a song. Although the room was not air conditioned, no one seemed to mind at all. They were just the sweetest people and we're so glad to have met them!

As we drove through an extremely poor village, everyone waved and smiled at us from outside their houses. We saw several people brushing their teeth from a public tank filled with water and others just spending time together.

The buckets on the side of the house are for catching rain water to drink. Having always just turned on the faucet for clean, fresh water, seeing the rain water buckets was really eye-opening to us.

The fishermen catch these tiny fish which they air dry and sell. You simply pull the head off and eat them as a snack. A lot like potato chips! Yeah, right...

...and of course, Matt asked Jemmi if we could stop so he could try one. I didn't try one because for some reason, I just didn't feel like eating a dead fish off the side of the road...but that's just me.

There were palm trees for miles!

These small huts are set up on the beach (Tri Kora 4) and the locals use them for picnics and a place to hangout.

Tri Kora 4

These sweet locals gave us a pineapple and coffee. We spent about 20 minutes chatting with them. We taught them a few American words and they giggled when they said them. So cute!

House boat used for fishing. Most of them are anchored out in the ocean, but these ones came close to the shore due to high winds.

Our driver, Jemmi, showing Matt some of the freshly caught fish at the fishing village.

I wouldn't say these docks were the most sturdy things we've ever walked on. They wobbled with each step we took - yikes!

A little street side store where we bought yummy snacks (if you called ground up BBQ fish yummy).

...but I was happy to find Rambutans!! Now these are yummy. They're often referred to as the "hairy fruit" and they're common all over southeast Asia. You just peel off the skin (just like an orange) and you get a mildly sweet fruit that taste like a grape :-)

The not so sturdy boat we took over to Penyengat.

Here we are managing to smile while praying that the boat won't sink!

Selamat Datang means "Welcome" in Bahasa Indo.

We ran into these local tourists visiting from the neighboring island of Batam. They asked if they could take a picture of us and then wanted another picture with us. They were so friendly! Jemmi told us they're not used to seeing Americans which is why they wanted the picture. In fact, the little kids around the island told Jemmi that "Matt was just like Beckham" in reference to David Beckham, ha! We also ran into other locals that wanted to practice their English with us. It was pretty surreal!

The grave site of Sultan Haji and his family members. The yellow indicates royalty.

Many people use this form of transportation on the island.

The island had beautiful flowers all over the place!

Entrance to the Buddhist temple.

Inside the temple.

Buddha was pretty hard to miss!

...as was Buddha's helper.

Jemmi suggested we fly this dragon back to the hotel, but we stuck with the old fashioned car ;-)

The Sunday school kids singing their praise song! :-)