Enjoy!

This is an overview of the entire place. Yasin Bungalow is a relatively small resort where one gets to live with the minimum. Great for those who love just the natural sun, sand and sea.

If the photos posted aren’t clear enough to see the inside of the water bungalow, hope this footage will help… the minimum way of living…

When the tides are low, tiny crabs come out to play…

Every morning, we will hear this music blasting from the radio at the reception counter. I think this is one of the staff’s favorite song. After listening to it for 3 days, we got a kick out of the song too! Even Pinky:st couldn’t resist but dance and shake to the catchy tune of the song!

And finally… the tiny friend we met at Yasin Bungalow! We didn’t ask for his name, but he looks like the pup in Scoopy Doo, so we named him “Scrappy Doo”, younger brother of Scoopy Doo! Wahaha!

This footage shows how naughty he was! Making a mess with his playing of the box…

This was the morning view from our room

The usual check-out time at Yasin Bungalow is 12pm. But as our ferry was at 4pm, and had to leave only around 3pm, we requested for an extension so that we could check out later. Thanks to our luck, there weren’t any reservation for that day, hence we were given free extension of the room till we were ready to leave.

Some shots before we settled down for our breakfast…

View of the water bungalows (without the water)

The relax beach chairs

This is the common area with TV
Behind it is the kitchen

These shots were taken at the same time in the morning…

with help from my sunglasses

Used it as a filter in front of my lens for the above shots

Breakfast was Egg and Cheese Sandwich and Fish & Chips, with tea and coffee…

After our breakfast, we took a stroll along the beach to snap some shots of the seaview bungalow that is much bigger with 2 to 4 rooms (I think).

Walkway to the bungalow

This is one of the 4 bigger bungalows at Yasin
Looks nice isn’t it?

And this is the other one
Great for bigger families and big group of friends

Before we head back to the room to pack up and wait for time to pass, we spotted these on the beach… do you know who left them behind?

Tiny footprints by our little friend

More views of the water bungalows with nice backdrop by the nature…

We stayed in our bungalow for the rest of the day as I was badly bitten by the thirsty mosquitoes there. Staying in door was the best solution. Played some games on our PSP and couldn’t resist the temptation of taking a last afternoon nap while we still can. And when we woke up, this beautiful view made us want to stay there for another day!

Looking out the balcony door

Bright sun, nice sea breeze and beautiful scenery!

Soon it was time to check-out and take our lunch before we head to the jetty. Really couldn’t bring ourselves to leave such peaceful and relaxing place. But reality is waiting for us back here. How I wish we could just stay there and rest our minds for a few more days.

So what’s for lunch?

Chicken Satay

Sweet and Sour Fish

Fried Vermicelli

Saying goodbye to the friendly staff at Yasin Bungalow, we departed in the chartered car to the jetty. The journey there seemed longer and our mind was filled with the scenery and experience back at the bungalow. Thanks to the nice sky and beautiful clouds at the jetty, my mind managed to give the trip a beautiful ending.

Isn’t the clouds just look amazing?

This marked the end of our short getaway at Yasin Bungalow, Bintan. It was truly a different experience as compared to the other one we had at Mayang Sari Resort. At Yasin, everything is back to the basic. With no air-con (but was windy most of the time), no water heater (YES! I showered in COLD water for 3 days!) and too many mosquitoes!

Besides the beautiful photos (taken with my little Canon IXUS 950) and wonderful memories of the time we had at Bintan, I got on me many ugly marks given by the vicious mosquitoes! And these are some of them many on my body!

Highlighted in white circles…

on my hands

and look at the many many more on my feet!

So if you’re planning to make a trip there, I believe some of you who’d been following my posts will, please make sure you’re packed with the MUST HAVES…

Mosquito Repellent

Your favorite medicated oil

Thanks for following me on my trip to Bintan. Hope you like the photos I took. And do look out for the final closing post of my trip where I’ll post up video footage and also revealing the cute little friend we met at Yasin Bungalow!

9am: Breakfast
11am: Soak in the sea and play some water sports
1pm: Lunch by the beach
3pm: Soak in the pool
4pm: Back to hut to rot till dinner

But what actually happened was…

When we woke up, this was what we saw outside our water bungalow!

What happened to the sea????

Even Pinky was upset that she didn’t want to show her face

The tide in the morning was very low. And with the non-sloppish beach, water level is ZERO when the tide is low. The sight of water was almost a few km away from the shore. The morning birds were walking on the muddy sea to check out the small tiny island nearby. We were too lazy disappointed with the missing sea, so we decided to stay at the beach instead.

But I did have a short walk on the muddy sea cos one of my Pinkys fell while I was talking photos of it! So I had to go down to pick it up. And my feet got stuck in the mud! It was NOT fun at all lah! (At least for me lah. I hate muds!)

Since there wasn’t any sea to soak in, we took our time to get ready for breakfast.

Pinky waited outside looking at other guests hanging out at the pavilion.

Breakfast was included in our package, and we had a choice of few breakfast items.

“Hmmm… What should I take?
Fish & Chips or Cheese Omelet?”

After our breakfast, we took a free shutter service from Yasin Bungalow to their sister resort, Agro Beach Resort. We were excited to head there as we were told we could use their facilities like the swimming pool! And since the sea has disappeared, we shall spend some time in the pool while waiting for the sea to be filled up.

Agro Beach Resort is just a 3-min drive from Yasin Bungalow. As told by one of the staff at Agro Beach Resort, more Asians, especially Singaporeans prefer to stay there instead of Yasin Bungalow. And she was surprised that we picked to stay there instead. She said most of her guests at Agro prefers to sleep in comfortable air-con rooms instead of the natural sea breeze one over at Yasin. And Yasin is more suitable for the Americans who loves the sun and the beach.

Agro Beach Resort – Entrance to the restaurant

Agro Beach Resort is still very new and many parts are still under constructions. And the facility that we had wanted to use wasn’t ready!!

The pool was under construction!

Very upset when we saw this. It looks so nice and big with jacuzzi pool by the side of the pool. Why isn’t it ready? *sadness* There’s another smaller pool near the reception area where the visitors are using for now. We had a dip in the pool too since the sea disappeared and the big pool wasn’t ready.

Mini pool

Did I mention that the water was SUPER cold?

We then took a walk by the beach after the dip… some things we saw…

Outdoor Massage Pavilion

LOTS of tiny crabs!!

Restaurant by the beach

“Hmm… nice kayaks! But cannot play…”

“…cos there’s no water in the sea!”

The Walk towards the food!

As we were too early for lunch, and the place only starts serving at 11am, we sat outside with our snacks and cards…

Waiting for lunch time.

Finally it’s time for lunch!!
(Time seemed to pass SUPER slowly at this relaxed place)

Table no. 5 – That’s where we sat for lunch

Look what we found on the menu!

Shock Chicken??
(Nope we didn’t want to get shocked. So we skipped that dish.)

Abang was too hungry!

He attempted at eating off my Pinky’s head!

Good thing I managed to stop him in time.

“Wow! Food looks nice!”

Kailan with Beef

Buttered Sotong with ‘Nestle’ Cereal

Fried Seafood Kway Tiao

Grilled Chicken with Rice

Remember the 160K of bill? Here’s what its for…

164,560Rp for lunch! (Only SGD25)

I spotted this behind the restaurant…

Wrecked ship

On the way back to the resort after lunch,

more colorful boats spotted

We returned back to Yasin Bungalow and the sky was getting dark again!

“Rain rain go away! Come again another day!”

For the rest of the day, we spent time sitting at the beach drinking fresh coconut juice, stayed inside the well protected area (bed with mosquito net covering it) to play PSP games and just lazed around and rot. This is the best life for us lah! Totally the opposite of our daily life in Singapore.

For dinner, we had it at our balcony. We ordered some dishes and had cup noodles which we bought from Singapore.

Abang with food…

and me eating the food!

That’s the end of Day 2 for us. Day 3 coming next! And also don’t forget videos and find out who’s this naughty cutie pie!

Scrappy Doooooo

As requested, we arrived an hour early to collect our tickets at Tenah Merah Ferry Terminal (TMFT).

Our boarding passes

On the way there, it started to pour! My tummy did a flipflop cause my last experience to Bintan wasn’t very good. I was a “merlion” throughout the journey back due to the rough waves. Good thing the rain started to slow down when we arrived at TMFT.

While waiting for our ferry, what better way to entertain ourselves?

Play PSP of course!

Abang with his PSP

And me with mine

With our great companion, time flew past in a flash! Soon we were ready for boarding!

Walking towards the ferry

And this was our ferry…

Wavemaster 5 by Berlian Ferries
Heading to Tanjong Pinang

Upon arriving at Tanjong Pinang, I was quite shocked to see the heart of Bintain. I thought it’ll be as dead as the other time I was there. Then I realised the other time, our ferry anchored at the other ferry terminal at the other end of the island. Tanjong Pinang is where the people live and it sure looks more fun and lively! Our driver, arranged by the agency we booked the resort with, picked us up in his van (with super powerful aircon!) and we were on our way to Yasin Bungalow at Trikora Beach (the name of the beach sounds like one in Neopets right? LOL!).

On our way there, I snapped some interesting sights…

Colorful houses along the narrow streets

Bright posters on the wall

Not sure what this is but found it interesting

Many people there use motorbikes as their mode of transport. And its not unusual to see more than 2 people on a single bike. The max I saw was a family of 5 on a small scooter!! But this I thought was pretty dangerous considering the kind of traffic and the way the baby was held. Scary!

And there’s this funny looking sign on the road…

It’s a U-turn sign by the way.
Wonders if these people were u-turning and ended up getting stuck there on the sign. o_O

Passing through the busy town area, into the rural kampong area and passing many mini bridges, finally we saw sign of the beach! The journey from the jetty to the bungalow took about an hour. Good thing the air-con was blasting at us, in fact I was almost frozen when we arrived!

The sky was dark and drizzles were falling on our head. Kinda groomy welcome. But we still like the sight of the place. Simple, peaceful and nice! More photos of it in my Day 2 post. I shall end Day 1 with two shots of our little bungalow (more like a hut) for our 3 days at Bintan…

Bed in the room
(The mosquito net hanging on the bed is there for GOOD reasons!)

Two handmade seats outside our balcony
(GREAT view ok!! Photos coming soon!)

So what happened over the weekend?

What did we have that cost us more than 160k?

And what’s this cutie doing with us?

With more than 600 photos and 10 videos to go through, I’ll probably take sometime to get this up. In the meantime, I’ll also be getting the already ugly me even uglier tomorrow! So what am I up to?

Stay tune for more updates!