I've never been to Bintan before and with Tioman being crowded over the weekend (think it's because it's the last weekend before the Chinese 7th Month Festival, everyone wanna go diving before the 1 mth hiatus), it seems like a good idea to go there.
Besides, my friends are used to the hospitality of Indonesians and thought it would be great to go back and "enjoy" it again. :P
Despite the super early morning (waking up at the ungodly hour of 4.30am) to catch my fren's car and going down to Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal, we were all in good spirits and even enjoyed a nice little breakfast before meeting with the rest of the group travelling there as well.
There was 29 of us! with 3 DMs, and 1 instructor as there were 7 OWDs
The OWDs were going to do shore dives. The 12 other divers (look really professional with the equipments and stuff) were in 1 group and then there were the 5 of us plus 1 guy whose friends are doing the OWD.
Bintan Agro resort was nice. It surpasses the resort facilities of the Tioman's resorts that I have stayed in so far. They have 2!! swimming pools, nice breakfast spread, restaurant on kelong, pool tables (at a fee, of cos), lobby wifi access and nice beds (comparing to Tioman's resorts).
The water at Bintan is.... bad.... Low vis... about 2-5m? slight current underwater, strong current on water.
We did not even bother to bring our cameras down with us.
I think our guides were seriously pleased that they do not have to wait for us to "capture the right shot". LOL! However, I think they also ran out of places to show us cos we circled around the same area twice before finally surfacing. All rather shallow dives, about 12m, and each dive lasting about 35mins to 45mins only with lots of air left in our tanks.
Cold bottled water was presented to us after each dive.
The boatmen are helpful and will help us in rigging up or derigging if they see that we have a problem with it.
Backrolls are required although you can opt for Giant Stride entries too.
We saw a Giant Grouper, 2 Blue Spotted Stingrays, 2 Huge Puffer Fishes, trapped in the fish cages with no way of escaping. My friend tried to pull it up but couldn't.
I saw a small moray eel hiding shyly in a crevice
A nudibranch flipped over in front of us before continuing on its slow journey.
Butterfly fishes? and some small blue black long fishes, and clown fishes were seen (I'm bad with the names of fishes)
I had difficulty in equalizing (pain in my ears), as usual, and my dive com died on the first dive. Well, out of battery to be exact. So did another 2 friends cos we bought our coms about the same timing. Oops!! Had to depend on the DM and another friend for that.
I puked after the first dive. I was already suffering from Jaw soreness for almost 2 mths and slight nauseousness. I think all these plus the strong current on water contributed to the puking.
I aborted the 2nd dive.
The next day, I tried again
And I puked...
So I aborted the 2nd dive too..
Otherwise, nice trip, nice scenery, more relaxing than Tioman, no need to carry gear bags, time to nap on the 2nd day before our departure, funny DM, and I think a good instructor for the OWDs. All in all, a good trip. However, I do not think any of us would go back to Bintan to dive again.
Cock-ups...
- However, some cockups such waiting a long time for plain water to be served at lunch despite us being not the last table to arrived. In fact, we were the last table to be served. Thereafter delivering our avocado drinks to another table and we had to wait 30mins to 1 hr for it to be finally delivered to our table with lots of sorry from the waitress, and the explanation that the waiter didn't know, the other table beckoned him over and he just pass the drinks over to them. But we asked them a few times for our drinks already and yet this happened?!
- Going back 3 times for my pancake during breakfast and having my friend being served her pancake first despite her ordering later then me, with the icing being that I was asked twice as to the ingredients I want on my pancake! They said they will deliver the pancake to me later but I rather stand and wait there then. Their service seriously pales in comparison to what I experienced in Bali and Sipadan.
- We asked for a shuttle service to town and were told that the drivers are all away and we have to wait an hour for a driver. =/
- We asked for massage service and were told that there were only 4 masseurs. The lady whom we asked to help us book, did not come back to us that the timing we wanted were unavailable.
There are other activities there which looked like FUN!
Like Kite surfing, banana boat, and another inflated boat thing.
Perhaps the next time, we can go back to try the other activities, rather than diving.
Extra food that we ate:
Durians at 30k rupiah per kg. Sweet and nice! for the lunch. But it was hard and dry for the dinner as those are fresh durians that just dropped and was not allowed time to ripen.
Cheap and delicious Otah! abit small, but really cheap. I heard it was about SGD $0.05? - SGD $0.10 per stick. We can't find it at this price anymore.
Goreng Ayam
Deep fried popiahs
Avocado drinks at 27k rupiah
Ice cream!!! - Magnums at about 24k - 26k rupiah depending on the flavour. I tried a new one Pink Pomegranate which is quite nice. Paddle pops were like less than 10k rupiah.
Saw fireworks selling at 250k to 1,200k rupiahs. Something which is banned in Singapore but you can play with it in Bintan. Perhaps can try this the next time as well.
Guess I really need to resolve the issue of my jaws before I go anywhere else... oh well.
Appointment with dentist - booked!
