If you're looking for place to chill and relax = chillax nearby Singapore. Bintan is definitely the place! I have always love the beaches and resort kind of atmosphere. I prefer beaches to shopping but I still wouldn't complain when it comes to shopping. Hehe! As you all know, our Krabi trip got cancelled, so I look out for the next beach vacation and it landed us into Bintan, Indonesia. Hehe!
Bintan Day 1
I'm honestly a noob when it comes to travel bookings etc. And it took me hours just to look for a platform to where I can actually book a ferry to Bintan because unlike flight you know there's Scoot, Silkair, SIA etc. I don't know ferry names. Lol! After much research, I found out there are 3 ferry services that can 'ship' (hahaha) you to different parts of Bintan.. And since, we were going to stay at The Canopi, the nearest ferry terminal stop was at Bandar Bentan Telani Ferry Terminal which in this case Bintan Resort Ferries (BRF) cater.
Anyway, our ferry was at 2.30pm. Thus, we left house at about 11am by public (we wanted to save money and say no to taxi, uber & grab) all the way from Choa Chu Kang to Tanah Merah MRT station to have breakfast at Simpang Bedok.
In the train.
After lunch, I actually went to a nearby Giant there to buy instant noodles for us to eat if we were hungry at night and milo 3-in-1 for D since he can't live without milo. Apparently, after doing much research about Bintan, I heard the things there can be quite expensive. By the time we finish the shopping and our lunch, it was almost 1.15pm and we had to check-in to our ferry by 1.30pm. Our goal of no taxi, uber and grab failed because we had to flag down a cab to Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal because taking public will cost us more time.
Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. It was both our first time here.
By the time we arrived, it was just nice for us to check-in to our ferry also known as Indera Bupala but because the ferry got delayed for a few minutes, we actually had some time to sit down at the waiting area (after the rush).
Oh did I mention that I accidentally did a double transaction while booking the ferry the other time? The first transaction said fail but I didn't know it somehow went through and thus, I went to pay it the second time with another card. And that really spoil my day.
Here I am trying so much to save money but I end up doing the silliest thing to "spend" more money. But anyway, I managed to call BRF to get a refund but they said it will only take 4-6 weeks for refund. Hopefully the remember to refund me back because $128 is not cheap to me. 
We safely board the ferry and it was about an hour journey before it started pouring so heavily.
Some things I read while in the ferry, while D dozed off to sleep, as usual. 😔
This wasn't the place we stay but oh well, it's a map and I love to see how I could go around in the island. Hehe!
Bandar Bentan Telani Ferry Terminal
We reached Bintan at about 2.30pm Bintan timing (Bintan is 1 hour later than Singapore). I didn't dare to try accommodation that is further away from the ferry terminal YET. Thus, the nearer accommodation to the ferry terminal would be 'The Canopi' because I was afraid if we will get ourselves lost or further accommodation also means expensive taxi fares. And worse come to worse, if we have to walk to the place (with GPS guide), it won't take us long to reach the place.But I could really laugh at myself the moment we pass the immigration checkpoint because all the hotel staff no matter which place or hotel you booked, doesn't matter if it's SpaVilla, Lagoi etc, the hotel stafs were all waiting for our arrival with their hotel sign board names as well as our names written on the paper registration to confirm our arrival. And yes, they chauffeur us to our accommodation. Truly sweet! I'm not sure if you have to pay for the ferry transfer for other resort but for the canopi, it was free. So while waiting for their bus to arrive to fetch us over, D and I bought their Indonesia SIM card for easy access and internet connection. And it was really cheap. 7GB for 150,000 rupiah which is equivalent to S$15. Cheap right?! So anyway, we are always so blur handling their money currency especially me & numbers, we don't work well. I was figuring which note to pass to the girl because I had all the notes in my hand looking at the numbers but the lady was really cute and she told me "1 red, 1 blue." And we both laughed.
The Canopi
It continued raining but it was less than a 15 minutes drive from the ferry terminal.
We headed to the check-in counter and they gave us a brief introduction of the place. After which, we were told that they need to block 1,500,000 rupiah via the credit card in case of any accidental event; else they will return back the money to us. From the reception place, I could already see the Crystal Lagoon. It's so huge and beautiful, no one can missed it.
We were then given our room keys; Safari Tent number 33 and there was a buggy to buggy us to our room. While inside the buggy, the buggy driver showed us our breakfast place and a few places around 'The Canopi'. I'm truly intrigued it was such a pretty and unique sight + experience to glamping (Glamarous Camping) and we had our own personal tent to our own.
D got more excited when he realized our room had HBO channel, which also means we could catch the last episode of Game of Thrones, LIVE people! Instead having to stream it online. Hahaha! We rested for a while, before leaving our tent to walk and look around 'The Canopi' place. Despite the place being "small" or an "island" on its own further from other places, there are many activities that can be done to fill your time there.
E-Scooter
We tried the E-Scooter the first day, it was 15,000 rupiah for 1 hour. D have always wanted to try riding a bike for the longest time and they had the best opportunity here since it was an auto bike and you need not need a license to ride one. The person guide D the first time to riding the e-scooter and when he turn the throttle (accelerator) so hard, he almost flew off the scooter. HAHAHA! When he finally get a grip of it, he was so much better. And my first time riding the e-scooter was much better compared to D but just because I've actually take up bike license (although I never complete it. Hahaha!), else I would literally shoot up right up to the sky. Lol! D was definitely happy riding the e-scooter, I didn't know how many times we kept pillion each other going in circles in the canopi till our 1 hour was up.
It was almost 6.30pm when we stopped riding the e-scooter and we were quite hungry for dinner. Just nice, in the canopi itself has a eating place called - The Patio. We settle down there for dinner and with Crystal Lagoon as our night view.
Mine and D's main dish.
Our satay. And their dishes actually taste a bit too salty for me. I guess it's an Indonesian thing.
After dinner, we went to the look around the reception area to see where we could go or what we can do the day after.
Went back to our tent hoping to catch Game of Thrones but......Game of Thrones live in Bintan will only be shown the next day at 8am. So we both went to sleep in vain, besides I was also down with flu, took meds and I knock out right after.
Bintan Day 2
D and I woke up pretty early for breakfast and head down for breakfast at 6.45am. The breakfast starts at 6.30am to 10am. We wanted to have breakfast early so that we could catch Game of Thrones just in time at 8am. Hehehe! All in the name of Game of Thrones.
D walking to head down to the breakfast area
Me heading to the breakfast place. I didn't know D took a shot of me.
These are the Garden tents. They are further away from the Crystal Lagoon, but if you're lucky, you might get the one nearer to the entrance as well as the breakfast place.
The entrance of the breakfast place.
And how inside of the breakfast place looks like,
No this is not D, btw.
The breakfast spread was okay-okay and it doesn't have a lot of variety compared when we were at Meritus Pelangi Resort in Langkawi. I remember I couldn't try all the food there since I was too full from trying a lot of food but this time in The Canopi, I managed to try all their buffet spread since it wasn't too much of a spread.
The food was nice! And we went back to our tent just nice to catch Game of Thrones. I cannot believe how happy I was and so was D to catch it LIVE.
After Game of Thrones, I was so excited to dip inside the beautiful Crystal Lagoon. Changed into our swimming wear and it is only less than 5 minutes walk to the lagoon from our tent. Oh, we also got the technician to fix our water heater. Can you imagine how cold I've been showering without the heater? Lol! I can't live without heater like how my husband can.
They were quite prompt in their service.
Crystal Lagoon
After swimming, we went back to our tent to wash up. I wanted to try the Segway while D wanted to do e-scooter yet again. Just as we were about to leave our room, it started pouring heavily. So we stayed in, fall asleep and woke up at 2pm, when the rain stop.
Segway
Honestly, we didn't know that Segway can be initially hard to handle. LOL! It was my first time trying Segway and I find it hard to balance. It requires body balance to move the Segway forward and backward and the using the handle to move left and right. If you lean forward the Segway will accelerate faster and leaning yourself back will cause the Segway to reverse but we were told not to do that because according to the instructor it will cause one to start panicking once the Segway reverse. But I have the tendency to reverse it so many times because once I accelerate too fast, I got scared and I tend to lean my body backwards.
Anyway, unlike e-scooter, the Segway cannot be rented for 1 whole day use, so it's either you do a 1 round or 2 rounds thingy around The Canopi and the instructor will have to follow and lead you to the rounding. We tried just 1 round for fun - $12/pax/1 round.
And yes, you have to be all geared up for protection and that include the helmet + the protective gears. LOL! We look ridiculously funny but oh well, my husband keep saying I look cute like a small girl.
D putting on his protective gears. Lol!
Me happily on the Segway. Hahahaha!
And yes, after the Segway, I was kind of tired but D wanted try e-scooter again. That boy is really addicted to riding a bike.
So while he did a few rounds, I went back to our tent to rest.It rained for at least 1 hour after that and when it stopped raining, D and I decided to venture out of The Canopi since we don't want to be just "trapped" all day long in the Canopi. Lol! We googled and did some research before that there is a Hawker Centre nearby. Besides, we wanted to buy things like some snacks and drinks to keep inside our tent and we were kind of hungry to eat lunch.
I did some silly "experimental" thing. LOL! I wanted to see if the place does Uber or Grab (if it will be cheaper) but sadly, NOPE. Hahahaha! But not to worry, The Canopi provide transport or taxi ride to places you want to go. It's a 7-seater car, so if you have more people to go, you'll save more per person because the prices is according to per ride/destination and not per pax or if you have more than 6 people, you can take the Mini Bus. The drivers will ask you how many hours you want them to fetch you back, but even so, they will still wait for you at the carpark. I guess that's what we think since both time when we took the taxi, the driver will somehow still wait for us nearby.
The prices range for transportation rides to some places in Bintan.
Anyway, they no longer accept dollars and all transactions and payments are made in rupiah.
Pujasera Hawker Centre
To Pujasera Hawker centre cost us 100,000 rupiah for a two-way and you can choose to charge it to your room or you can pay it in cash. Since D and I changed a lot of Indonesian rupiah, we decided to pay by cash in case we "exceed" a lot of payment through our card.
This is how the receipt looks like. Hehe!
Distance from The Canopi to Pujasera
I didn't know it took us less than 10 minutes to reach this place. We could have ride the e-scooter (yes, you can) to Pujasera but I'd rather not since D and I doesn't have a proper license (even though you don't need one) and I don't want to risk doing things like that especially in a foreign country. Anything can just happened. I've always been this phobia ever since I heard of this news years ago when I was still young, that this Malay young couple who just got married and decided to drive on their honeymoon at Australia and both passed away in accident. Well, people say ajal maut di tangan Tuhan but it's better to be safe than sorry but even if you're safe and things like this were to happen, then it's already God's Will.
Anyway, the driver ask us how long do we want to stay there before he fetched us back. Before that, I was quite ambitious with D, saying I wanted to do some shopping and probably I want to stay for at least 4 hours there. But I was 'smart', I ask the driver, how long does people usually stayed on. His answered was but in Bahasa Indonesia of course "kayak nya kalau makan dan shopping, satu jam saja, Kak. Tapi kalau kakak mau buat spa, maka nya 3 jam gitu lah." which means if for both shopping + eating, it will take 1 hour. Unless spa probably 3 hours. I was like "Huh? Eat and shopping 1 hour?" How can that even possibly be. Knowing I'll eat pretty slow, I told the driver, "2 hours."
The moment we alighted. Honest to God, there was almost NOTHING there. It was like probably 1 whole hawker centre (not many shops were opened too) and 2-3 mini marts, that's all. I wouldn't want to do spa because I'm not going to leave D alone on his own while I do spa.
The Hawker Centre
The few minimart
That guy is not the shop owner and my blog entry below definitely it's not about him. Lol!
I came across this stall while doing my research, it is said that the food here is good. The nasi padang. But I wanted to have Bakso initially since Indonesian are known for good bakso but there were no bakso also here.
So that's it, Nasi Padang it was.But guess what? The stall owner was unfriendly and definitely bossy. D almost flare up but I managed to calm him down since this is not our country and I don't want any trouble please.
We were quite confused, they haven't had anything served yet just a few dishes, and they were doing lots of packing and unpacking, plus we didn't see any rice, so I'm not too sure if they were selling or they were closing, but it was only 3pm, so they can't be closed too early? My husband then asked politely (mind you, D was definitely polite) what kind of gravy do they served. The stall owner gave him the smirk and sarcastically asked D what he wanted. And again, D asked nicely, what do they have there, like the examples or the kind of food they sell, because we didn't have any idea what we wanted to eat, if only the stall owner could name us some dishes. But this time the stall owner answered D so gangster-ishly, asking D to tell him what he wanted to eat instead. I was like "What the fish was that?!" So I intervene and said "Rice." So the stall owner said, we have rice and asked us what gravy we wanted since they have 'Gulai Ayam' (Lemak Chicken) and 'Ayam Balado' (Fried Chili Chicken), D and I both have one each and the stall owner told us to take a seat first.
Thank God my Grandma used say the word gulai. Gulai is another word in olden Malay which also means lauk (dishes). Can you imagine if I ask that man what is gulai. Probably we will be half dead by then.
Time to eat.By then, D was feeling annoyed but I distracted him by telling him how I enjoy moments like this with him. The next thing we know, a lot of more other dishes was served on our table. I didn't ask for veggies etc but just chicken, but since they already serve it to us, I just eat it without complain. Then I ask the stall owner about payment, how much was it. And he snapped me right off in Bahasa Indonesia and went "Di Indonesia, Orang Indonesia biasa nya makan dahulu, sudah makan baru bayar!" with his unhappy face. At that point of time, I feel like just saying goodbye and leave the place but again, I told myself to calm down. I apologize to the stall owner and sat down to eat. D was really mad and wanted to tell that guy off, but I told him it was okay. The reason why D told me why sometimes he really dislike all these people coming to Singapore because they can be really rude (not all, just some.) Before, I used to tell him, he was mean and having his job, he cannot behave like that but until I also kena myself. Lol!
Okay sweetheart, now I got your point. Lol!Of course we wanted to finish our lunch FAST and get out of that place as soon as possible. But I cannot deny that the food was nice. The moment when we were done with our food, surprisingly the stall owner like had a flip of character switch. Lol! He was soooo nice suddenly and went "Itu semua tadi kak, 9 000 000 ribu rupiah." Not bad, $9 for everything it was definitely cheap and we were very full too. I still maintain my nice-ness. Lol! Said thank you and the stall owner went "Assalammualaikum kak. Assalammualaikum bang." Well, Waalaikumsalam bro.
If only he was nice, we would have bought packed food into our tent. Cis bedebah.
So in future pleaseeeee if anybody were to eat at this stall or whatever, just remember they served only rice + some other dishes and remember, to NOT pay first, I repeat DO NOT pay first but only at the end of your meal.
K.
We spend like 30 minutes eating and had like 1 hr and 30 extra minutes before being fetched back. So, we visited the mini mart since my friend, Eileen wanted me to get her this aroma therapy ointment which can only be found in Indonesia.
What a blur picture I took of the minimart. Lol!
Apparently, the shop only had 5 left and I bought all 5 for Eileen.
Bought a Ginger one to try for myself. Lol!
As usual, I won't miss the Ice-cream for the world. I tried their magnum Ice-cream of different flavour from Singapore. Hehee!
It was niceeee.
We wanted to do some activity for the night, so we were deciding to do a BBQ or some kind of tour. When we asked for the BBQ, we were a bit too late for the BBQ since the last BBQ 'order' is till 5.30pm. So we booked the BBQ for the next day and booked a Firefly tour at 7.30pm instead.
While waiting for time to fly before our Firefly tour. D and I decided to walk around The Canopi to look-look and see-see.
The Garden Tent which is behind our Safari Tent.
I actually played this swing while D were swinging me. Hehe!
We were somehow at the "upper hand" when it comes to communication because we can speak Malay. But not to worry, they all can speak relatively good English but Malay is still a definitely a better language for them. And they speak Bahasa Melayu instead of Bahasa Indonesia to us too, which means they are so used to our spoken language. Hehe!
D and I waited at The Canopi lobby at 7.15pm for the staff to fetch us by van to send us to some kind of forested area, somewhere near our Canopi too. It was an in-house firefly tour done by themselves. Well, you can venture out of the canopi for fireflies tour if you're feeling more adventurous because the canopi provide transportation for that too but it will be more expensive and for D and I, I'm just afraid if we will return back to our place much later because we were already feeling quite tired by then. The Canopi in-house fireflies tour was something I was still quite contented about and it cost us about 150,000 rupiah = $15.
You can check out other activities available in-house as well. Maybe one day if I got enough rezeki, I don't mind doing a firework for D for his birthday. Lol! Insyaallah!
So we finally reach the place while waiting to be brought over to our rafting boat for the firefly tour.
It was a full moon, the moon was shining down brightly.Riding our raft boat. It was obviously dark and my camera (iPhone 6) quality is not that fantastic. So this is the best pictures I have.
Managed to use flash to capture this image.
We were then told to put away our phone away and make sure there isn't any light or flashes because it will make the fireflies harder to be seen. Besides, it was a full moon, the sky was quite bright, so it was hard to catch the fireflies. But we managed to see some.
They were using torchlights to flash at branches and tree, just to make sure the rafting boat engines doesn't hit them. And all I could think of was Titanic. If ever, our wooden boat breaks apart, but no not really Titanic, the freezing to death part scares me. But please God, no crocodile please.
The fireflies look something like that in a glimpse but of course, this is not the firefly. It was too hard to capture fireflies with camera, with my iPhone 6 camera I meant.
So the guide steer the boat further in, until to a point it reaches where it was almost low tide and he was worried if the boat's engine is going to hit the shore. Thus, we U-turn back. But I was happy enough that I somehow managed to catch a little bit of fireflies here and there and how they look like in real life. It's really magical. It looks like I was almost in a fairy garden with sparkling greens around me. Hehehe!
It was almost like a 40 minutes tour, before we were then brought back "ashore" to be sent off back to our lobby by van. Hehe!
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The next group of people waiting to be toured. Yerps! We finish almost 10pm. So can you imagine if we were to do an outside firefly tour. I really wonder what time we will reach back to our place.
Once when we reach the lobby, I was excited to go for another tour the next day, mangrove tour actually. Because I wanted to see how different the place will look like in the day.
We were so tired, that the moment we reach back to our tent, we showered and knocked out while having to watch the 2nd telecast of Game of Thrones. Till the next day.
XOXO,
Princess Azie Anni ♥
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