Week end in Riau

My last visit to the island of Bintan, just a 45 -min ferry ride from Singapore, was a good 10 years ago. At that time the resorts on the northern shore had just opened their doors ,and I stayed at the Bintan Lagoon Resort. This time I stayed at the Angsana Resort and Spa which charged for food and services in USD, and at very inflated prices at that. If you don't eat and don't go the spa, that is fine! Anyway, I was very pleased with my room with a balcony and I sat outside for many hours. There's not much to do here. I tried to go for a Mangrove eco-adventure, but the tide was out at the time I wanted to go.

I went for countless walks on the 500m stretch of beach instead. There is of course the town of Tanjung Pinang and a fishing village nearby if one is bored. They have an all-terrain vehicle that you can ride onto a prepared trail in the jungle. There's golf on a Gregg Norman -designed course.

The Pantai Grill, which has tables right on the beach ,was delightful. The smell of the kerosene lamps at dinner time brought back memories of the hawker stalls on Koek Road in the Singapore of the 50's. I had sate. [sah-tay]. The sate sauce tasted of the Indonesian soya sauce kecap, rather than the coconut milk base of the Singapore sate. The meat was chunky and well-marinated.

I went on a guided walk, but it turned out to be a boring tour of the grounds of the Banyan Tree Resort next door. The guide did point out an interesting tree, though. That's the "sea pineapple" It turned out that we also had that tree on the grounds of our resort