23-03-2009 here are the pictures and the story of bintan (indonesia)

So here we are, 

first of all, not to play with your nerves and to make the time to wait for the pictures too long, but only to answer to some comments some people made, i don't want to bother you with my working days because you won't be interested, but i am not just having good times here to travel around and visit nice places, I WORK TOO !!! believe i am working like mad...

but anyway, let's start the BINTAN day, after having missed the saturday, i was more than determined to go there on sunday (hoping that the weather would be good), so i woke up at 6h00 to take the first 8 o'clock ferry in tana

h merah ferry terminal (cost of the journey:44 SGD), and let's go for a 1 hour journe

y, during the one you can see around 1000 big freight carrier boats queuing to come in singapore harbour.

when I arrived in Bintan (Bandar Bentan Telani terminal), i had to pay 10USD to buy my visa valid for 7 days, then i had to avoid the guys who wanted to take me by cab for a fortune and i finally took the bus to Nirwana Garden's resort.

there i paid 10SGD to access the resort beach, which i left quite quickly because it was too crowdy for me, so i left for the mangrove for a little boat trip, so i put a lot of  insect repellent in order to avoid to catch the dingue the fir

st week, and of course as it wasn't really sunny at the beginning of the boat trip i didn't put any sun cream!!!!!!

so the entry in the mangrove :

a large river surrounded by a sort of a very dense jungle

Then the river start to become more and more narrow and you can start seeing these weird roots flying between air and water

You can also find some little fishermen villages lost in the middle of nowhere

These fisheermen, far to earn enough money with their fishing were also producing charcoal with this big natural oven ( 15meters high ) burning mangrove trees which if you listen to them gives the best charcoal ever

A Boat lost in the middle of the mangrove

You are in the mangrove, the deeper you go the most you can feel this weird feeling of being in the jungle... with roots and trees averywhere in all the shape you didn't even think of before (and at the end it starts stinking too ... not not that much, so you can still bear it)

Then you can find this kind of roots... weird shape ? isn't it ? i swore at the beginning of my blog that i wouldn't make any sexual jokes or anything like this but these roots just look like DICKS !!!!!

And some other roots like these ones, called gibbon trees roots and they can be very very very big !!!!

here is now the first animal we saw in the middle of the mangrove, you won't see any pictures of monkeys because they were too fast me, but i can tell you they are not that cute ... so coming back to this iguana, it was almost 1,50 meters long and din't seem to be anoid by us being there

The second animal we sau was a black and yellow mangrove snake ( i don't remember the name...), during the day the snakes are almost all sleeping and become active during the night, we saw something like ten of these ones, we also sau a python but the piscture wasn't that good so ...

I said almost all sleeping... except this one with his big yellow head, they are very venimous !!!! I was insured !!!! if i would have died my familly would have received 20000 SGD !!!! i am cheap, am i not ?

another fisherman house

After  big SUNNY trip  of one hour and a half in the mangrove among the trees, in which one the insect repellent is completely useless because the water is salted and the mosquitoes don't like salty water, I though the trees were protecting me from the sun so i didnt add any suncream to my useless repellent ) , i decided to go back to the beach to go a some snorkeling

water temperature ( i don't know because i didn't take the exact temperature but the water was more than lovely and completely seethrough )

long beaches of white sand and behind, the jungle, with palm trees in front of course

I came back by the last ferry in singapore, with a french girl that i met waiting for the bus with who i went for dinner in clark quays ( just to play the contrast card: nature/night life area)

The result of my day was :

- a lot of nice pictures in my head

- a lot of uice memories

- the wish to go back to bintan but in the south which is wilder than the north

- and a body completely burnt by the sun ( up to my toes ( which are the most painfull today in my shoes...!!!! )

The typical tourist

But anyway you can imagine how I felt yesterday evening at mine ( reviewing this day....)

write to you soon

cheeeeeeeeers