Little shelters line Trikora Beach which you can hire for about $7/day
Fish Farm
Beach Shelter....saves taking a beach umbrella
Day 162
We have the day off golf today and have arranged with Romi to take us to do some sightseeing around the Island. We are picked up at 9am and our driver is Dilva. First stop is Trikora Beach on the east side of the island. It is not as developed as the area on the west coast where we are staying but there are several resorts in various stages of planning and development and probably the economic situation has slowed things a little but in 5 years time there will be resorts and golf courses galore. At present though the local beaches are still very natural with fishing vessels, Kalongs, and local fisherman’s villages, Kampongs, and as it is a Sunday there are lots of locals swimming. We have a swim in the lovely clear warm water but our visit is cut short a bit with another little downpour. We head off to the largest city on the Island, Tanjung Pinang where we have some very fresh seafood for lunch at a cafe followed by a bit of shopping. We are supposed to go over by boat to a little island close by, Pulau Penyengat, (Wasp Island), once the heart of the Riau sultanate and the cultural hub of the Malay empire. The island is just 15 minutes by motorboat but you have to either wait for a boat load of people and costs is 5000 RP (60 cents) or pay a private taxi boat 150000 rp ($18) pp each way! We decide to give that a miss as we would have only had a short time there anyway. Will have to read all about it in the lonely planet...... Next stop is Gunung Bintan (Mt. Bintan) where we have planned to climb and apparently takes 1 hour return. There are a few light showers on our way there so not sure if we will be able to climb and when we get there our driver tells us it is actually a 3 and half to 4 hour return climb and it is now 4pm!!! There has been some communication error with our Mr Romi it seems which we will have to sort out tomorrow........All in all a lovely day and drive but a little disappointing missing 2 of the places of interest.....so back to the resort and dinner again at the local village.
Welcome back from Singapore where has that week gone,The golf courses looked great,Shame about MT.Bintan,there's always MT Warning (sorry not a good idea),Concert in Brisbane was great although I have a confession to make I fell to temptation and had a couple of beers (lite) with Dinner before the show ,we had great seats, Neil and Robyn are great fun to be with, and as you do ,on the way Home we all agreed we must do this again soon ,Well thought is there,Dudley rang from KL today and we are all looking forward to Wed the 19Th ,and by the way thanks for having that Tiger Beer for me(that one in the photo was mine wasn't it)ha ?ha? Cheers STEVE.
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