The technical crew stayed at this 'Bintan Lodge', off the radar of most visiting tourists to the resort island. It is a chalet style place looking like a mini 3-room HDB flat when you go in, with living room, kitchenette and 2 bedrooms.
Don't think it's expensive, but there isn't any leisure facilities there, just like a place for you to stay. Going around will be a problem if you intend to stay at that place. But it is operated like any other resort, with the staff dressed in flower-print shirts and with food order services available.There were three rope stations, and I was operating the tyrolean traverse that day, helping to set it up, doing despatch, and also taking down the entire thing, coiling up hundreds of metres of rope.
The view from the site had a nice view overlooking the 'Kelong', which is an upmarket restaurant beside a golf course.
After we set up the line, we ended up waiting about three hours for the first racers to come. There was a small shelter where had lunch, took shade, and napped. Some pictures from the place there...
After a grand total of 3 racing teams went by our station, we dismantled the station when 5pm struck (Night falls at 6pm in Bintan). It was tough work lugging all the hardware and ropes on top of the cliff down to the entrance of the place, and when we had finished packing, we had to wait around for the vehicle to pick us up. Even the tide went down by then, creating a 'Chek Jawa' mud plain. Man, it reminds me of the countless times me and my buddies have to lug kayaks and countless bags of gears across muddy low-tide grounds when we finished paddling for the day on our kayak trips.
After the initial hype of doing a race up overseas was diminished, I felt that the trip wasn't worth it, all in all. Maybe I lost my enthusiasm in such things already, or did too much of it. Time to move on perhaps?
2 comments:
I dunno why these talks of passion dying down, perhaps it would be good to think about why you loved it in the first place? Surely there must be something else it wouldn't be able to keep you interested and going back to it...
Anyway, is the sea there good to paddle around? :p
Well it's just that the initial thought of going there and doing the work is exciting, but it turns out to be pretty anti-climax. So wonder if I'm doing these still just out of habit, which I suspect is the case. I have got other passions of course, elsewhere...
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