Pulau Ubin and Bintan, Indonesia weekend

Short ferry ride to Pulau Ubin.

Saturday, me and Katelyn went with Amy to the nearby Island of Pulau Ubin, which is part of Singapore. It was a very short and cheap ferry ride away. The island is undeveloped, unlike the rest of Singapore, and has a very village-ey ('kampong') feel. Lots of people come there to bike, hike, and eat seafood. There we got some bikes at the area near the ferry dock and went biking around for a while. The roads were well labeled, and it was nice riding around nature. We got off and went through a mangrove and did some hiking through the jungle, saw some mud skippers! If those things don't scream evolution then I don't know what does.

Looking for and taking pictures of all sorts of critters and stuff!

 When we went back to the bikes (where there were a whole lot stationed) we found that a bunch of monkeys and boars (including cute baby boars). The ensuing scene was quite hilarious with the monkeys hopping around and stealing bottles from the stationed bikes, and proceeding with biting them and drinking the contents. The boars did this as well with bottles that they knocked out off of the bikes. They were all really close to us and it was very funny. Totally made my day :) I will post those photos/videos later.

We then got some local eats, ran into a couple of other EAPSI fellows, biked some more, and took the ferry back. A very nice, nature-laden morning/afternoon.

Fresh coconut water is always available - nature's sports drink!

Some food by the water after hiking & biking.

Lots of bikes everywhere in town.

 I then went to my Prof's house for a lab party, which was super delicious as his wife made some Korean food and we played a bunch of Wii sports (apparently I'm pretty good at table tennis and shooting things).


Sunday we were going to Bintan, Indonesia! There are a lot of resorts there, so people usually stay more than just one day, but since it's so close and we only had one day, we decided to make it a day trip. We went to a ferry terminal and took a one hour boat ride to Bintan (south east of Singapore). Tom and Jerry were the on-board entertainment, though most people napped as it was so early in the morning.

On the way to Bintan.

 After arriving at Bintan and getting a little jipped for the 7-day Visa, we were followed by one of the resort drivers who wanted to take us on some fancy tours. It was quite annoying, but not toooo bad. Our plans were to take a taxi to Trikora beach, about an hour to the east. It's a public beach frequented by locals which is supposed to be super beautiful. After a very fast and swerving ride, we arrived at a beauuuutiful white-sand beach full of Indonesian kids running around.


We were there for about 4-5 hours total, enjoying the sun, sand, and amazing water. Had some delicious local food. It was great.

Can see boats and prawn farms in the distance (they were actually swimmable-to)

Local eats (and yes, coconut water again :) )

Nap time!

Gorgeous beach

One of ton of pictures that were taken.

 Got about 50 billion pictures taken with the locals. So first, since Indonesia is a Muslim country, even the boys there were all fully clothed (even in the water). Of course us girls showing up in our bikinis was different for them, but no-one seemed to be against it. Second, since this was a local beach and they probably don't get a lot of foreigners there, EVERYONE wanted to take pictures with us.

Usually teenage boys and girls in large groups would spot us, say "Hey Mista/Miss, pictah?" and make a camera gesture. Since we are nice, we let everyone take pictures with us. They'd giggle so much! Then of course everyone would have to take it with their phone and in different positions etc. It wasn't too bad unless we were walking off by the beach. Me and Liz tried to walk down the beach at the end (wanted to see the other side), but the picture taking made us turn back. It was knd of funny, but pretty tiring/annoying towards the end. At least we indulged the humor of some of these kids who think tall white people are cool!

It was a very beautiful place and makes me very excited for Bali in a couple of weeks!