Its been awhile since I last stepped into Bintan. On the suggestion of a friend, we booked a weekend getaway for the group of us. Since the doughnut and pretzel floats were the latest rage, I took the opportunity to rent one. This is especially since the resort would be a perfect backdrop, for taking pictures with it.
So prior to the trip, I took to Carousell, a smartphone app to search for the doughnut float. And low and behold, there were quite a handful of people, (at least 5), renting or selling the float. After doing my homework and finding a seller near my place, (yes I was not going to travel to the far ends of Singapore just to get a float!), I managed to rent a float at $12.
Come Saturday morning, I boarded the ferry with my group of friends and we were in for a great surprise. During the ferry ride, to our left and right, passengers were merlion-ing all over. That's right, it was the monsoon season and the waves were extremely choppy. Thankfully, it was only a 45 minute ride. But note to self, in future, please do not go to Bintan in February.
Our resort bus picked us up from the ferry terminal and the check-in was rather smooth. We stayed at Nirwana Gardens. The hotel's grounds were sprawling and they even had a mini zoo within the resort.
We rented a 8 seater vehicle to get us around the island. Our first stop was lunch at a hawker centre where the locals ate. This also gave us the opportunity to buy tidbits at the local convenient store. I managed to stock up on my keropok.
After lunch, we headed back to the resort for some relaxation time. And now this is where the hard part of pumping the float comes into place. Because it is such a humongous float, it is almost impossible to blow the float up with your own mouth. Neither is it possible to use a small balloon pump. Thankfully, my friend had brought a pump for her inflatable kayak and the doughnut was blown up with 5 minutes. So to those intending to rent the doughnut float, please remember to bring a big air pump to blow up the float.
I spent a good part of my afternoon just lazying by the pool with my doughnut and taking lots of pretty pictures with it. It was a very relaxing time just chilling in the pool and looking at the sea as the world went by... ...
Deflating the float was another hurdle. It took 5 minute to pump it up but a good 20 minutes to deflate it as we took turns to squeeze the air out. But I must say, it was good fun just lying on the float and posing with pictures on it. Its that kind of girly fun which I thoroughly enjoy.
We went out of the resort for dinner and used the rental vehicle to take us to a seafood kelong. No way were we going to pay exorbitant hotel seafood prices.
After dinner, we hurdled around our friend's cabana and had a night of drinks and fun. We took the ferry home the next afternoon but not before... enjoying the resort's buffet breakfast.