Once In 14 Years Trip

It's rare to have friends whom you have known in 14 years (while you ARE NOT a lao kokok), and 14 years means 2 x "7 years itch".

Aniway, after a whole year of planning, cancelling, procrastinating, planning, procrastinating... we finally settled a day to go o'c, 4 days before departure. And our destination? Getaway to Bintan Agro Resort, from 15 - 16 July 2006.

We took the ferry thinking that it would take 45 min, but it was twice as long. It was full play of kiasu spirit trying to get onto the ferry cos it was free seating.

Just outside the customs, we found the counter for Agro and the girl tpok us to take the van to the resort.

On the van, to resort

It was another half an hour snaking through the build-up area and through the fields. After all, Agro is NOT a beach resort; it's a plantation resort. In fact, it was smacked in the middle of nowhere and the air was very fresh.

at the lobby entrance

The staff was very prepared and before I even uttered my name, he fished out our keys and proceeded with the check in. For a resort with no 5-star facilities, it has 5-star service, which extended throughout our stay.

Lobby

Our impression was like: it seemed we were the only few in the resort, served by a worker-to-customer ratio of 10:1, so much so we wondered how they managed to keep afloat and maintain the resort.

Lobby's bar

The staff were always available, and upon request, 2 drivers were sent to drive us to our abode on 2 tricycles. On the way, the drivers doubled as a local guide, who drove us around the resort and introduced us the activities that could be done. Unfortunately, most were not what we'd do, like golf and fishing.

Just outside our residence

We were rather fascinated, cos it was our first time taking the mode of transport. So much so we kept taking pix with it. haha... and the drivers were so kind to indulge us in it too. At that point of time, we really believed we were the only guests there.

A pic outside our residence

The room was spacious, with a single queen sized bed. We had 2 rooms. Even then, the guys' room had a 12-inch TV rather than the 32-inch the gals had. Hot shower and air-con provided and the window opened out to the verandah equipped with benches for guests from adjacent rooms to chat.

And did I mention we had a great country view (boy do I sound like Samantha Brown...)?

Corridor

After settling down, we proceeded to find the swimming pool to see if we could do some tanning. But the clouds were daunting. We cut across a plantation via a little 羊肠小道, lined with yellow roses amidst rambutan trees.

kf even plucked one rambutan and ate it in the spot.

Me and jing

The pool was like, ermz, ok for people who are not picky. Well, if you LOVE swimming in the sea, then you would have loved swimming in the pool amidst the algae and other unknown precipitates. We ended up playing in the water the next day, though dipping out heads into the water was a taboo...

Me and kf beside the pool

We then walked to have our dinner. The resort was so small that it was walkable, except by night, cos there was minimum street lightings. The restaurant offered stuff like the zhee-char stalls we have back here. The best stuff was the fruit juices, so fresh, you will have to peel it on your own.

Simple meal...

Believe it or not, I ate the above for dinner.

NOT!

In addition to those above.

I dined with a dark-eyeringed ghost...

Outside 'Kampong'

We then had an after-dinner phototaking (there really wasn't much to do there...). We took pix of other residences. There were Kampongs, manadao and cottages. We lived in the mediteranean, which at the point of booking, I though was a safe choice. It was a right choice indeed, cos at dinner, a whole swarm of PRC tourists flocked and stayed in the Kampongs.

After-dinner photo-taking

We walked around the resort again, till the sun went down. We were trying to walk off our full dinner, cos we intended to go spa at night. We went back to our rooms to wash up and called the lobby to send us over. This time round, we were transported on a jeep, something like a GP car.

We all agreed the spa was worth out effort to go all the way here. Even though the end cost of ferry+accom was equivalant to the cost of having spa at S'pore, the service was over the top. We believed it was cos we were like VIPs to them, such that they treated us as good as they could. And not to add the scenery, fresh air , experience and isolation from normal work and stress that money can't buy at home.

I must admit it was my 1st time having a spa treatment and I was blur like sotong. The jacuzzi, however, seemed lacklustre and the masseuse's only vocabs were: Excuse and me. I was stifling my urge to giggle throughout, cos I'm someone who's VERY AFRAID of tickles. hmmm... not to mention the massage of inner thighs. I nearly broke into laughter.

Many guys thought I would have shown some bio-rxn, but believe me, the tickles was more over-powering than the weird sensation of a 3rd party's hands hovering over the sensitive areas.

But well, now I know why Cleo and Teenage insists that the inner thighs were erotic regions...

Harassing the figurine outside our residence

After our massage, we had foot reflexology, cos we need to pass our time while jing finish her milk bath. Then, we had the driver send us to lobby, where we ordered our supper (room svc) and back to our rooms. ha... 1st time I had room service lol

Supper

It didn't look much, but we ate like a lot. We had spring rolls, calamari (they called: breaded squids) and tauhu-goreng Indonesian version. The tauhu was especially interesting, cos it tasted normal at 1st, while the terrible, super-duper spiciness surface. All while watching a Stephen Chow's show.

Then, we played cards, along with MP3. Then, we slept. We were too tired to go back to our rooms, so the 4 of us squeezed onto the bed. Believe me, kf could haf squeezed with us and not sleep at the foot of the bed, cos er-hem... was literally clinging onto me the whole night, leaving a big space between her and jing.

oops, did I reveal er-hem's identity?

And I woke up freezing, cos er-hem was sapping me of my heat the whole night...

After a night of jolly...

Morning was simple fare, as in it's not intercontinental buffet. But we had fried rice, fried beehoon, sweet and sour fish, kangkong, a dish that was a combination of laksa and prawn mee (minus the spiciness), toasts, coffee and a funny-tasting kueh.

Very un-breakfast.

We went to the pool to sun tan and played around with the water for 2 hours.

Then we walked back to rooms, I dozed off for a while, and we went back to the lobby where we played cards over Iced-longans.

What's left of our breakfast

Then, we shopped at the souvenir shop and then had the staff drove us back again. cos it was sunny, cos they bought a lot of stuff.

Gp photo on the way to check out.

We slacked again in our rooms, watching Channel 8 and dozing off while waiting to check out. We were ferried to the ferry point and then we shopped again there, though it was a grab-and-go affair.

We couldn't squeeze onto the ferry in time, and had to camp on the deck of the ferry, exposed to the natural elements, including the sun that I got so much of from the past few days.

On the ferry back home..

Finally, it was back to home ground, but our getaway didn't end there. We taxied ourselves to Harborfront where we had dinner at Coffee Club. VERY NICE dinner. I guess that has become our favourite spot after Swensen's at WTC and CTP.