Bintan "Hütteldorf" or the thinking man

Hi there,

its monday, I´m at work, I´m tired - so everything as usual
Everything? Actually the outfading headache - I just took my 2nd aspirin this morning - reminds me of a slightly different weekend I just passed.

Well, for starters.
Philipp, or Viellieb, or Philippo, an IAESTE-Leoben comrade does his internship "nearby" in Hongkong, and so decided to just fly shortly "round the corner" to say hi. Nice, isn´t he :)?
We planned to go to the malay island of Tioman, for some diving and chillin - and planning was supposed to be my part. But since I had loads of work to do last week, wich rarely ever let me leave the office before 8 or 9, we had do skip the planning and go to something more intentual and sponateaous.

On a quick internet research - I picked viellieb on friday at midnight from the airport - we found out about this Trikora Beach on Bintan island, Indonesia, wich was 2 hours closer than Tioman was, and the the supposed ferry to Tioman was undiscoverable anyway. After getting up to late, and underestimating bus travel times - what? -I´m studying in Leoben, everything is 3 mins away - we missed the first ferry, but still arrived at 4:30pm local time in Tanjung Pinang, the biggest city on Bintan island.

Not knowing a lot about the place where we wanted to go, besides not knowing exactly where to go :) we tried to avoid any porters, taxi drivers, immediate best friends, and other assholes fishing for us human dollar notes. Somehow we managed to confirm hour Ferry back at 6 pm sunday (keep that time in mind!) - wich was perfect because it meant more time to spend here.
So now we tried to find a cab, that would bring us to that Trikora beach. Actual that might give you a wrong impression because we didn´t really have to search for one, but tried to get one that wouldn´t demand 25 euros for 30min ride in a "postbreakdowncar".
Well, we found one, after a while, but with a major problem/damage to the steering device, as we discovered on our 1 Hour!!! drive to Trikora. But at least we got there unharmed.

Since all this huts along the westcoast, are famous spots for exchange students of the numerous singapore universities, we´ve been brought to one of them - Shadys Shack - controversially a really fancy place.

Indonesia_Bintan_Trikora Beach

I´ll let the pictures speak for themselves, and will just mention our way back - In a taxi worse(!!!) than the one that brought us, trying to catch hour ferry (6pm, still remember?).
Well, floods of rain - a van without a windshield wiper and without sidewindows, trying to get to the ferry withn half an hour. *lol*
I just should have known it better...
It was after 6 already, and we still weren´t close to the ferry terminal, when I started thinking about a backup plan (which i set aside 10mins ago, to think about just in case) how to get Viellieb his flight. 6 am the other day, on "the other" island. Thats when I realised how helpless one can be 2hours far a place, impossible to reach without a proper transportation...

To spare you the minutes I sank more and more into desperation, I can gladly tell you we made it to Singapore, and my comrade caught his flight - well on time. But only after getting kicked of one Ferry we tried to sneak in, an intentionally remained bribery try, and the final gnosis "that everythings relative most of all time" ;)

I hope my last week wont suffer on the stress hormones I raised that day in indonesia, and my next trip to that - perception rich country, next weekend, well spare me untought on those "lessons learned in time"

keep it,
Helmuth