Bara-bara couple in Indonesia

my first trip to bintan was sometime around july last year. i was in singapore, marlon had a a couple of days off, and while trying not to die of boredom in singapore we discovered that we had very little aptitude in planning vacations together.

thus the epithet "bara-bara couple" was coined to refer to our sorry asses -- asses that had chose a place less than 24 hours before setting off to it, asses that begged to be let on the ferry (other people had actually booked tickets online), and asses (ok, just mine) that had a nearly-expired passport and had to allow the immigration man to seek whatever indonesia's equivalent is of tong, and receive it, just to be on their merry way.

anyway.

bintan is in indonesia, as i mentioned, less than an hour away from singapore's tanah merah ferry terminal. standard immigration procedures are enforced to perpetuate this illusion of being in indonesia, but it's almost like being in a little pocket of singapore within indonesia. it's singapore's little playground, the pricier swings and monkey bars exclusively for the lion city's teeming population of expats.

but for the bara-bara couple, there was only mana mana beach club. drawn there rates significantly lower than those of its neighbors, marlon and i were soon thoroughly hooked on mana mana's specialty -- fabulous, floury, piping hot thin-crust pizzas with names like the blues (blue cheese, walnuts, capers) and kiss-me-not (garlic, anchovies, capers). too, there was its homey, open lounge deck with big teakwood chairs and stacked bookshelf, its colorful and comfy cabanas, and its fluffy, cheery yellow beach towels that proved just too easy to pilfer.

and so a year later, with a one-day weekend left to squander before we both flew off (me back home, marlon to guangzhou), we made the trip again.


the beach itself is no great shakes, especially when you've been spoiled by philippine beaches. in fact, the first time i saw it, i thought it was downright ugly. might have been largely because of the bad weather at the time, which also made a snorkeling trip murky, frustrating and pitchy to the point of near-barfing (yes, me, the certified water baby and beach bunny.)

but this time around, with the sun in abundance, it was quite perfect. sunny, clean, quiet. one of the staff made some amiable chit-chat with us, and told us that bali (where he was from) was noisy and insane by comparison. that made me feel a lot better, since i felt that the frazzled boyf needed the relaxation more than he needed cirque de soleil.

speaking of staff, the service at mana mana is like manna from heaven (no pun intended) after the dour faces and rude barks that you get in singapore (with the exception, marlon and i noticed, of indian restaurants or restos with indian servers). staff smile! make friends! offer to do things for you! let you take your time! coo at babies! it's like stepping out from a freezer into a warm kitchen, where maybe thin-crust pizza is baking in the oven.

for the first time, all the alleluias foreigners have sung to filipinos for being warm and hospitable meant something to me. suddenly, i knew how important a little warmth was to someone away from home.


we just stayed a day, and went home utterly exhausted but it was more than enough. looks like bintan has grown on me.

i booked the room and ferry tickets online, in advance, this time. but the bara-bara couple would not be spared. i had mistakenly booked the return ticket for sunday evening -- and we both had flights out first thing sunday morning! murphy's law, naturally, reared its ugly head in the form of a system glitch that would not allow the ferry office to check if we had indeed paid for the return ferry. and we were almost out of cash.

after lots of frantic running around, we finally managed to scrounge up barely enough to buy a second set of one-way tickets back to lah-lah land. marlon totally freaked out, but later he said he fancied himself a contestant on the amazing race.

i presume i would be the useless partner that all the viewers think is pathetic and should die. and i felt like it too. but all's well that ends well. especially if it ends with a gorgeous tan.

--

i'm in ateneo, making lampaso the campus' wlan access at a glorious 54 Mbps. incidentally, i'm sitting right outside the classroom where marlon and i first met. (faura 117, doreen's merit english class). how things have changed since then.