Beachliness Review 5: Bintan, Indonesia (Fauxnesia)

I'm surprised and conflicted by the results of the infallible LiS Beachliness Review 5 of Bintan, Indonesia: a ferry-ride away from Singapore, and normally good for weekend getaways or bike crashes.

I call Bintan Fauxnesia. I have not been a huge fan, given the lack of exoticness, and with the extensive visitors.

However, since our kitchen has burst into a puff of toxic renovation dust and noise, it seemed like a good place to work for the week. 

So, let's measure the Beachliness! First, sandiness. Really quite excellent. Now that I notice such things, I was surprised.

Second is boatiness. Boatiness in Bintan is low, although the small fisher boats are picturesque. Half points.

Third: prettiness. There are nicer and less nice spots, but here it was really quite pretty, so I give full points, again to my surprise.

We even saw one of those big blood moon things for the first time, although we didn't have the neck-breaking machinery to capture it, so here's a boring moon.

Fourth is desertedness. During the week and with many countries not fully travelling still, we had amazing desertedness. I will give full points, noting that in regular times, this would not apply.

Speaking of which, this whole resort was deserted. And creepy.

Fifth: wildlife. I knew there would be half points for the intertidal creatures, but we had surprises. First, froggy friend: a pink tree frog couple, who I failed to species-dentify, hopped around our balcony, impressing me with their acrobatics and cute toes.

Man, I love frogs!

Then, we saw a civet cat at twilight! So, full points!

6 is availability of activities. Bintan's activities are ok, but fairly standard touristy. and normally crowded, so I think half points are due.

Since we were working, the only activity I did was taking pictures of the sunrise.

Here's what the other end of that looked like.

Finally, availability of cocktails. While you can get them, the quality is definitely not as good as the food. So half points, and a picture of some of the delicious sambals that I ate all week.

In the end, this score is much higher than I expected, which demonstrates the LiS Beachliness system's ability to withstand bias.

Bintan Indonesia Beachliness Review

Sandiness: 1

Boatiness: 0.5

Prettiness: 1

Desertedness: 1 (weekday)

Wildlife: 1 (partly luck)

Availability of activities: 0.5

Availability of cocktails: 0.5

Total: 5.5/7

Sidra, Statues, and Koi

In Basque country, I learnt about sidra, or local (unpasteurized?) cider, which you pour like this. It's only a bit stressful.

 It is fabulous, and I would like some more, please, but Aperol spritz is good as a second choice.It may perhaps be the solution to my digestive system, which is sometimes like this.

Anyway, I had a workation, which is where you work from a hotel room, and gaze upon the outdoors. There were bible cowboys and an actual real marching band during my conference call!

I took breaks to stay on top of Asian online shopping, and it remains confusing. While the banana duck statue is tempting, the rest are confusing, and the woman is clearly not using the economical VR headset properly. She's also forgotten her shirt, so there are struggles.

Then, I tried to order a garbage can. I swear that's all that I searched for!

Quick, let's catch up on the news. In Singapore, the otters are still decimating the local outdoor ornamental fish population, but I'm more sad about the dog here. And yes, the otters eat the yummiest fishy bits, and leave the rest.

Ok, back to Europe, where buildings have the cool. This one shows how short people used to be.

Buildings get a statue for supervision

And sometimes they are grumpy

This airport hotel got really excited about adjectives, which is a great idea, since I don't actually need these things. Although, fun fact, I have an actual human friend who uses shower caps, although maybe not retro vintage? I prefer to have ultimately preeminent teeth.

Went to a church to look at the stained glass, but they had a delightful exhibit going on to cheer me up.

Kind of same as my friends, but less diverse.

This is the Guggenheim museum, which is very pretty on the outside. On the inside there is art.

It has the world's most famous spider with very small feet.

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