This was the weekend to test a place for Mike, Kristin, Joshua, Charlie and Sarah - who will visit in June. We left Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal and watch flights land at Changi.
Here is a new experiment - with Google Maps. GPS Visualizer provides some neat tools for converting from GPS file formats to Google Earth / Maps format. The map is fully interactive - so you can zoom in the Agro Beach Resort and see the islands shown below in the photos.
From Google Earth, here are the tracks of our Ferry ride to Bintan Agro Beach Resort (red trace) as well as the tracks to our first visit(blue trace) on Feb 8, 2008.(click image to see in GoogleEarth)
and with a tilt to get an interesting perspective (click image to see in GoogleEarth)
Friday March 7, 2008
Here, SQ landing.
And Air India landing
Leaving Tanah Merah
The Singapore skyline and waiting ships
Mersk - as we often saw in Charleston
March 7-9, 2008:South Bintan and Agro Beach
Arriving Bintan harbor
Ellen and Shanti (from Agro Beach Resort) - waiting for our van to drive across the island
First we obtained our return tickets - a typical Pinang street
The Falcon office. Here Shanti exchanged our voudher for return tickets
Driving along the highway
A fishing village
Check in at the Bintan Agro Beach Resort - Reception
The entrance area - full of fresh air, sun and pleasant people!
Well the surprise and overland trip was worth it. Here is the Bintan Agro Beach Resort from the Sun Moon Restuarant (at high tide). Our room is in the building to the right.
A view of the Sun Moon Restaurant, with the best Gong Gong and Chili Crab and fried bananas and ... we've tasted.
And our room
and Ellen on our porch
It was low tide shortly after we arrived so I took a hike across the ocean floor. Here were some kids looking for shell fish. On a good day they can harvest 1 kg of these small tasty treats
Here she is looking through some sand
and looking at me
and pulling her bucket leaving a trail of sand
This is some sort of fish net
This lady sets crab traps and later harvests the contents. Here she is baiting the trap.
Later the sun started its goodbye
with streaks of red
Evening lights
This was an experiment. A 6 sec exposure while moving the zoom from the 55 mm to 18 mm
Saturday March 8, 2008
Its a new day and high tide and the sun is just beginning to say hello
I had so much fun with the zoom exposure, I thought I would try it in the morning. Here is one of the resort boats with 1 sec exposure (f22) while moving the zoom
The walk from the beach to the restuarant
Our table in the Sun Moon Restaurant
They have a small trap for catching really fresh fish
Ellen did her lap swimming while I was spider hunting. She met a Korean family (Janet and Soo). Soo is 8 and speaks perfect English.
As part of our exploring we visited another group of bungalows that were built over the water - like Lincoln's kelong.
There are a group of small over-the-water bungalows - so we visited
There is a common sitting area
And the beach
Meanwhile - I was spider hunting. A Nephila
The dorsal side
Across the path was a lady and her micro-man
Male and female
Male - note the black palps
A side view and ventral side (with the male to the right of her last leg
Nearby was a small stream with water lilies
I liked them
Can't wait for the next visit
C. Frank Starmer