Part Two: Bintan Indonesia- Critters, Coconuts and Cool Shopping

Hey all,

I hope you enjoyed yesterday's blog on Bintan. The resort is quite a way to celebrate a Valentine's Day, I have to say.

Part Two picks up after our afternoon in the pool where we flirted and drank fruity drinks by the score...

We had had a wonderful evening that night. Walked around the resort, ate dinner, and even went to a nightclub. Afterwards we ate some ice cream. Jonathon had this interesting flavor called sweetcorn, but I kept to the standard chocolate chip...oh wait. Here they call it chocolate chips! LOL After all, there are more than one! *snicker*

Ended up back in our room for a nightcap, where we sat on the balcony with our coffee and enjoyed each other's company.

Fade to Black... *grin*

But we were awoken the next morning by a huge and horrible crash. I leapt out of my bed and just like one of those stupid women in the horror movies, I ran outside on the balcony to see what the noise was. (I must say in my own defense, I thought someone had fallen from the room above us. That's what my sleepy mind heard.)

There was nothing there. I looked up and there were our neighbors above all staring down at me with the same look of fright and confusion that must have been on my face. When I asked them what was going on, they pointed past me with a grin.

"Monkeys," they said, chuckling. "The cheeky buggers are looking for food and if they don't find it, they toss the furniture around."

OMG...first Jonathon gets set on in Singapore by a clever con-monkey, her kid and back up hubby and now, here we are in another country having chairs tossed at us because of the same thing.

Don't any of these guys feed themselves??????

As you can see in this picture there are two monkeys, one on the umbrella, the other on the lattice partition. But what you can't see is the other monkey cohort, climbing up our balcony to grab at Jonathon who, you guessed it, had the camcorder out! LOL As soon as he saw that, Jonathon ran back inside and out of reach to the disgust of the trio of camera thieves!

Well, it got us up and we celebrated the new day with coffee on the balcony as we watched the resort come to life. It was fun to watch them manicure the golf course and cut coconuts out of the trees. Fishing boats went bobbing about on the water and it was difficult again to tear ourselves from the view and move in doors.

Fade to Black...

Next, we headed down to eat breakfast and OMG, if you think you've seen a buffet, you've got another think coming. This sucker was HUGE. It had just about every asian type food you can imagine and quite a few western ones as well. Check out these pictures...


And look at where we got to sit! Right on the water and the whole place is wide open so you can actually reach out and touch it if you wanted to. Birds flew in and out of the dining room, perching right on the arm of your chair.

We tried all kinds of food, from noodles to some really interesting native breads. There was also this nut thing that tasted a bit like very bland coconut or tofu. But we pigged out and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

And as we ate, the tiny fish in the water would come up and gaze hopefully at us. We couldn't feed them, so it was with great gobs of guilt that we chowed down on our delicious food. LOL
After breakfast we went out immediately and took a long walk on the beach. We were leaving the resort to go look around the island, but we wanted a swim before we went anywhere.

And it was heavenly. A most wonderful time. There was a slight breeze and the water was as warm as a bath. We had a bit of a scare because there were some jellyfish like critters in the water too, but they turned out to be harmless. I'm still trying to find out what they were.

But playing around and enjoying the surf was worth every moment of worry. I love the beach and being able to goof around and frolic in the waves was delightful.

And to do it with my sweet baboo? Now this is the life!!!! We walked and swam for several hours before a glance at the sun told us we were getting close to our departure time. We stopped at the pool for a quick last drink, ( you know we had to swim up to that bar again) then got ourselves ready to go. It was hard to leave Bintan Lagoon Resort, and if it weren't for the construction that went on at all hours we'd definitely come back.

We wanted to spend time in Paser Oleh Oleh (the village) looking around and doing some shopping. We would have like to do more, but we only had the two days here. But a quick bus ride in and we were in this town that reminded me very much of something you'd see in a backwoods area of Tennessee or on a remote seacoast. Check these pics out...



We picked up some cool Indonesian sarongs, magnets and then a pair of Indonesian Wedding Masks as souvenirs. Then we sat down and enjoyed a cool drink and some delicious Indonesian food. We tried this delicacy called Otak Otak, which is basically this mashed fish and some sweet coconut milk made like a paste and stuffed into banana leaves. It is then grilled on the open flame. It was quite spicy but delicious. We were given 10 of them, but managed to eat only 7 with the other food we got. I was bummed I loved them so much. Below are the pics as to what the food looked like.

Here it's wrapped in the banana leaves.

Here you see me peeling back the banana leaf.

And here is the actual meat. Looks kinda like a cooked piece of banana.

It's yummy, but boy....is it spicy. I think I'm getting a taste for spicy foods. I don't think I have much of a choice living here. LOL

Jonathon had a coconut to drink as well and he couldn't finish it either!!!

It was a wonderful ending to a great quick getaway. We said goodbye to all our new friends and hurried to catch the ferry. A couple hours later and we were back home in the hotel and feeling every bit of the sunburn that we'd collected over the last two days.

But it was worth it!!! I'll be back tomorrow with a picture for all of you to look at. It's a sea creature we can't identify. Maybe you can help!!!!

Hugs to all,

CJ England

Follow Your Dreams

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