I had wanted to visit Bintan for years. Bintan is an island that belongs to Indonesia, but is easily accessible from Singapore. I love Singapore and this was my fourth visit to the country. It had been my intention to take a trip over to Bintan on one of my previous trips to Singapore and somehow I’d never quite managed to get there. So on this Singapore stopover I was determined I was going to go over to Bintan.
I had flown overnight from Perth to Singapore and from Changi Airport I headed straight to the ferry terminal to get the boat to Bintan Island. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get through Changi Airport and to the ferry terminal, so I had allowed myself plenty of time to get there. However, the famous Singapore efficiency was up to the usual standard, I was quickly through immigration, my bags were on the carousel almost immediately and the ferry terminal wasn’t very far from the airport by taxi. I could have got an earlier boat after all.
All this meant that I had a lot of time to sit and hang around at the ferry terminal. I checked in, got rid of my suitcases and then I had to clear Indonesian immigration as I would be landing in Indonesia when I got off the ferry. I had read some conflicting information about whether I needed a visa or not for Indonesia. For a visit of less than 30 days I didn’t need a visa, but you had to use certain entry points if you were travelling by sea to be exempt from the visa requirements. From what I could tell, any of the ports from Singapore on Bintan were included in these entry points, so I didn’t need a visa and that was correct. I breezed through Indonesian immigration and sat to wait for embarkation.
I was watching one Chinese lass with her mobile taking millions of selfies. She put her hat on for some of them and then her sunspecs. I wondered why she wanted so many selfies, especially in this very drab waiting room with its plastic seats and white walls. She’d have been better waiting until she got to Bintan or at least onto the ferry when there might have actually been something to look at!
The journey time to Bintan was just under 2 hours across the South China Sea, but Indonesia was an hour behind Singapore, so it was around 10am local time when I arrived on Bintan Island.
I had booked a local guide with a car for 2 days to take me around the island. I had done extensive research about all the things there were to do on Bintan and we had worked out an itinerary so that I wasn’t crisscrossing the island both days. I had to wait ages for my suitcase and so I was the last person to walk down the jetty from the ferry. However, my guide, Ahmadi was there waiting for me.
I got him to take me to my hotel first so that I could drop my bags off and get changed. I had booked a room in business hotel in the capital Tanjung Pinang. The room was incredibly good value and it wasn’t busy at all. Most tourists who go to Bintan stay at one of the resort hotels in Lagoi in the north of the island. I was staying there for the other two nights, but since there were quite a lot of tourist attractions to see around the capital, it made sense to stay there. I was very impressed with the lovely room I got and I could check in immediately because it wasn’t a busy hotel.
I reflected afterwards what a shame it was that people didn’t spend time on the southern part of the island. I enjoyed this region much more than the resort area in the north.
I got changed out of my flight clothes and put my comfortable and colourful jump suit on ready to tour the island and we were ready to explore. The great thing about having a personal guide is he knows exactly where to take you and you can take as long as you want in each location. And there’s someone there to take loads of photos for you.
Our first stop was 500 Lohan Temple. In this Buddhist temple 500 life size statues were lined up in the garden like Bintan’s own version of the Terracotta Army. There’s a huge statue of a Bodhisattva at the entrance and then you walk round the back into the garden where all the statues are.
As you walked through the entrance gate there were guardian statues where I had my photo taken and then we went round to the back to see the 500 life size statues of Buddhist figures at the back. These uniformly white figures are supposed to represent those Buddhists who have gained spiritual enlightenment and insight into the nature of existence, so the fact that they reminded me of outdoor ornaments you see for sale at a garden centre meant the significance was obviously lost on me.
There was a huge variety of figures at the temple, one looked unnervingly cheerful while another looked downright miserable. I suppose enlightenment and insight can either be a blessing or a curse!
I walked up the steps into the temple and from here I could see the entrance of the temple from above and also got a view out over to the enclosure where the 500 figures were.
As we were leaving a local woman approached my guide and spoke to him and he said that she had asked if she could have her photo taken with me. I was immediately suspicious. Why did this total stranger want her photograph taken with me? But it didn’t seem it was going to do any harm, so I said yes. After Ahmadi had taken a photo of us, I asked him why this local had wanted a photo with me. He explained that very few westerners ventured out of the Lagoi resort hotels and explored the island and that locals loved to have their photos taken with westerners who did look around Bintan beyond the resorts.
It was a holiday weekend on Bintan, so there were a lot of locals out at the various tourist sites in the south of the island and total strangers asking to have their photo taken with me became a common request throughout the rest of the day.
It was actually quite exciting to be a rock star for the day. I did rather enjoy being so popular. I could see that it would be really annoying living like this permanently though. I was pleased this was just a one day novelty.
Next it was on to Senggarang village calling first to see the Banyan Tree Temple, a temple with a scruffy looking exterior surrounded by the branches of a banyan tree that’s grown around it. There were a few locals sitting outside the temple eating lunch, but there wasn’t anything else much to see here, so after a few photos and a glance inside the temple we made our way to Senggarang village.
At Senggarang Village is the Lao Ya Keng religious compound which contains the oldest Chinese temples on the island. There is a huge Chinese gateway right by the water that marks the entrance to the compound. I had more locals asking to have their photo taken with me there and I obliged before moving into the compound.
The Sun Te Kong Temple is on this compound and there is a huge colourful statue of Buddha sitting on a lotus flower there. He has the symbol of holy divinity and spirituality on his chest and the symbol being left facing means it represents Buddha’s footprints.
On this complex there is also a Buddhist statue with multiple heads and arms which is often used in the Buddhism practiced in Tibet, which makes sense as we were at a complex of Chinese temples. The many heads and arms represent the far reaching and all seeing powers Buddha has. As you can tell, I’m no authority on Buddhism, a simple and brief explanation of what I was seeing was all that was required, so that I would have enough time to see everything on my itinerary today.
Senggarang is a Chinese fishing village believed to be the first Chinese settlement on Bintan. It is distinctive due to the stilt houses that were built on the water’s edge by the fishermen. I had asked Ahmadi to arrange for a boat trip for me to take me over to Penyengat Island and down the Snake River to another small Chinese Temple. Ahmadi had arranged a private speed boat, just for me, for the afternoon so I could see everything that I wanted to see on this part of Bintan.
The boat picked me up at Senggarang Village and we sailed past the stilt houses on our way to Penyengat, but we didn’t land there and so I didn’t walk along the boardwalks outside the houses which would have been nice. Maybe next time. It didn’t take us long to sail to Penyengat and we moored at the jetty so that I could tour the island.
Penyengat Island was a lot of fun in several respects. Rather than walking around, you have the option of getting into a becak and being driven around the island in that, A becak is basically a highly decorative motorbike and sidecar and I really enjoyed riding in it.
Penyengat which means “stinger” gets its name from the fact that passing sailors used to get stung by insects as they passed in search of fresh water.
The island was the home of the king during the last phase of the Malay kingdom and the first thing you see when you get to the island is the Grand Mosque in royal yellow. It is said that it was built using egg white to stick everything together! Egg white was apparently discovered to be a fabulously strong bonding agent. I went past the mosque in my becak and stopped for a quick photo, but I didn’t go inside.
Also in royal yellow is the tomb of Queen Raja Hamidah which I looked at from the outside too. Her family members and servants are buried here with her and their headstones are all draped in the royal colour of yellow.
We then went on to look at the ruins of the old stone palace and I had a brief walk around and took more photos. The ruins are part of a colonial style building. It had columns and walls, but no roof.
This is one of the historical sites on the island which the locals are highlighting as a reason that the island of Penyengat should go on the UNESCO World Heritage site list. I thought that Penyengat was delightful and probably deserved this accolade.
There was one final stop and it was one place that I did go inside while I was on Penyengat Island. Balai Adat Melayu Pulau is a museum that recreates the interior of a traditional Malay palace. I had several photos taken inside the colourful interior including on the throne which was surrounded by curtains of gold, green and red.
This was another place where I was inundated with requests to have my photo taken with local people, including one lady who wanted a photo with me and her young son. I felt like I was an ambassador from the United Nations! But I got much more enjoyment meeting local people inside beautiful venues like this than saying in a soulless beach resort like the majority of Western tourists.
Finally it was time to head back to the boat and as I got onto the boardwalk, there were a load of school boys who spotted me and asked if they could have their photo taken with me. I was disappointed this photo wasn’t also captured on my camera, because I was completely surrounded by beaming school boys who were absolutely thrilled to have me in the centre of their photo. That was definitely my most rock star moment of the entire day!
I still had one more trip to make in the boat, going down the Snake River to Sungai Ular Buddhist Temple. The boat took me through the mangrove swamps down the river until the Chinese Temple came into sight. Despite it seeming fairly inaccessible, there were a few worshippers there. It looked like there was a road that led here, it wasn’t just accessible by river.
The thing that made this temple unique, and particularly interesting to me, were the small paintings on the walls around the doorway just as you enter. These paintings represent the horrors and torture in hell. The paintings of Chinese figures showing what awaited evil people in hell were very disturbing, definitely the stuff of nightmares, but also strangely fascinating. I spent quite a long time looking at them. There was a lot of blood involved and quite a bit of hell fire too. Certainly no shortage of reminders of what would happen to you in the afterlife if you lived a bad life on earth.
There was a shrine outside the temple where a few worshippers came and went, I had a look at it and it certainly had a calming effect after all of those gruesome paintings in the temple. After taking a few photos of this rather more serene view, it was time to depart.
But my day wasn’t over yet. We had one more temple to visit, the Vihara Avalokitesvara Graha Buddhist Temple. This temple features one of the tallest statues of the Goddess of Mercy in South East Asia. The bronze statue is almost 17 metres tall and is coated in 22 carat gold. I went inside the temple to take a look at this enormous statue and then took a look around the grounds.
The temple is located in huge grounds, this was by far the biggest compound I’d seen. The driveway leading up to the temple was very long and there were more Buddhist outdoor garden ornaments in the grounds.
That marked the official end to my sightseeing for today, everything I’d had on my list had been ticked off. But I still had a bit of time left with Ahmadi, so I decided to take advantage of the fact that I was staying in the capital and asked if he could take me to a shopping mall. Obviously the markets are much cheaper and supposedly give you a much more authentic experience of your local environment, but as it was around 5 o’clock in the afternoon, I doubted there would be many stalls still open. Besides, I’d had the thoroughly enjoyable experience of interacting with local people all day in parts of the island where most tourists never venture, so I think I’d had plenty of authenticity today.
There were still bargains to be had in the shopping mall and local people work and shop there. I wasn’t in the tourist resort part of Bintan. I might have been in a shopping mall, but I didn’t see any other Western tourists.
I’m a typical woman who loves shoes and handbags. There were some lovely handbags, but even though they were cheaper than they would have been in Europe, they were still reasonably expensive, so I passed on the handbags. I couldn’t pass on the shoes. I spent ages in a large discount shoe shop and bought two pairs of very sparkly slip ons that would fit nicely into my suitcase. After an hour or so I went back to the car and got Ahmadi to drop me off at my hotel.
As I have already said, the hotel was a bargain and not only were the rooms very cheap, they also did inexpensive on site massages. After an overnight flight from Oz, an early boat trip over from Singapore, gaining an hour with Indonesian time and then an intensive day looking around the southern part of Bintan, a massage was just what I needed to help me relax and fall asleep so that I was refreshed in the morning, ready to explore more of the island the next day.
I visited Bintan in August 2019.
I did a private tour of the Bintan Island with Ahmadi from Bintan Adventure Tour. A private taxi for 10 hours cost 800,000 Indonesian Rupees (approximately £44).
Ahmadi arranged a private speed boat to take me to Penyengat Island and to the Sungai Ular Buddhist Temple for 800,000 Indonesian Rupees.
I stayed at CK Tanjung Pinang Hotel and Convention Centre in the capital Tanjung Pinang in a superior city room which costs around 630,000 Indonesian Rupees (approximately £35) including breakfast. I booked through Agoda.
I travelled to Bintan from Singapore with Majestic Fast Ferry which departs from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal in Singapore and lands in Tanjung Pinang on Bintan Island. A one way ticket costs approximately £30 in 2022. The journey time is 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Read about my second day on Bintan
