Bintan, Indonesia – A Glamping Good Time

Forgive that this post is more than one month later than the actual trip. As I am starting blogging for the first time, I am running into difficulties of technology illiteracy. Basically, I suck at figuring out how to use internet and web creation tools, plus the usual procrastination and dragging of feet to complete a project. Yes, I am truly a millennial (without the tech savy).

This was our second trip to Bintan Island, one of 18,000+ islands that make up Indonesia, but the largest of the Riau archipelago’s 3,200 islands. Bintan, as referenced in the map above, is a convenient and easy weekend getaway from Singapore, requiring only an hour’s ferry ride. The smaller Batam island, which is even closer to Singapore via ferry, is the place to go for cheaper nightlife and shopping experience, while Bintan is more resort friendly with welcoming beaches and coastline.

Our first trip to Bintan a little over a year ago was only one week after I had torn my anterior talofibular ligament and sprained several other ligaments in my right ankle. How did I do this? I stepped awkwardly on a high curb while carrying my son to a covered section of his school entrance in the rain. Even though I felt several ligaments pop in my ankle and knew it was bad the moment I collapsed, I’d be damned to cancel our trip to Bintan. I spent most of that three day trip with my ankle elevated and wrapped, hobbling where I could, and watching my son and wife play on the beach and in the pool without me. At least my injury got us all golf cart buggy service from the ferry to the immigration terminal back in Singapore!

Fast forward to this year, Jaidee’s school was on holiday for 3+ weeks, a true parenting nightmare! To maximize the time Azwa was on leave for her second maternity block and to occupy Jaidee’s waning attention span, we decided to do a small trip before our bigger family trip to Hong Kong for the New Years. As many other parents of young children can attest to, having activities planned is both necessary but extremely tiring. At least a little trip away can serve the purpose of distraction for the toddler and some relaxation for the struggling adults.

I had been searching for places to go for about a months time leading in to this trip, going back and forth between hopping on a plane to nearby Langkawi, taking a ferry to a new location in the Desaru coast, or repeating what we knew at Bintan island. We generally don’t like to go to the same place twice, and as time was winding down and I was trying to figure out how to make the finances work (use hotel points instead of cash), we finally settled on a new experience at a glamping resort not on a beach (thank you Marriott rewards!).

Our stay this year was a two-night trip to Natra Bintan, a tribute portfolio resort in Marriott’s branded hotels. The resort was all glamping tents surrounding a man-made salt water lagoon for swimming, water sports, and other activities. In addition to being a very different kind of stay on a beach island, it was conveniently only a five-minute bus ride from the ferry terminal, a huge plus when traveling with a toddler and six month old baby.

For our first night we were upgraded to a water-front tent with a separate couch and pullout bed. What was cool about the glamping tents was the combination of inside comfort amenities and vaulted ceilings with the outdoor and partially covered bathrooms, it was like taking a shower in the jungle! As Marriott Silver members, we had full access to the minibar, which was a bit surprising considering it is one of the lower tier statuses.

The hotel service from check-in to check-out was quite good as it was apparent Marriott trained their local staff to a different level of customer attunement than what is typically standard on the island. The manager, whom we had been in touch with prior to checking-in because of our split points reservation, was very welcoming and attempted to keep us in the same room given the fully-booked resort that week. We decided to take the offered one night upgraded room to be near the lagoon and then switch to our standard room (much farther away from the lagoon) using points for the following night.

Marriott’s Tribute Portfolio hotels are designed to be independent and unique hotels or resorts with their own distinct personality. While we purposely selected this glamping style experience for it’s uniqueness, offering atypical furnishings and finishings not normally seen in your classic hotel, the finishings still felt a bit dated, cheap, and clearly through a lot of use. As is common in older hotels that have a lot of guest turnover, there were some electrical plugs coming loose and lamp shades starting to fall apart. Despite these shortcomings, the separate couch with pullout bed worked perfectly for our baby’s travel cot while his older brother slept on the pullout. How the two of them sleeping so close to each other didn’t make the nighttime sleep horrible is beyond me!

Despite all the wear of the indoor space, the outdoor washroom was definitely one of the highlights of the room. I typically loathe mixing in nature, especially tropical nature, with any accommodation in which I am supposed to relax, at least for my room. So, when I first explored booking this hotel and seeing there was an outdoor washroom (which could also include monkey visitors), I was pretty against it. But, the way the washroom was designed, with the bronze fixtures and tilings, yet rustic and modern look, was quite impressive. This is what made the room unique, and showering outside (with no monkeys on our visit), made for an experience for us all.

One of the other highlights of the resort was the food quality. Typically, it can get quite mundane and boring when one restaurant serves all your meals as it’s easy to get through the menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in several days. While the included buffet breakfast was standard and serviceable, the selection of cuisines for lunch and dinner were quite expansive, including local Indonesian fare, western, vegetarian, and pan-asian cuisines. While I always have to get a burger or fish and chips (I got both here!) when on vacation, by far the local Indonesian fare was the best food on the menu. Between the Indonesian satay, kambing bakar (roast lamb), and beef rendang, the food was precisely traditional and perfectly apportioned and seasoned to the local flavors. We were quite impressed since we often find local food at hotels are adjusted to meet foreigners and lack their traditional qualities, usually spice, but this was not the case here. We could properly sweat while eating the chili sauce!

Since our stay was only two nights, we spent most of the daytime splashing around in the lagoon, while figuring out how to manage a three-nap schedule for our baby. Usually, this meant that one parent sat in darkness in the tent, while the other one entertained the toddler outside. Our hope was to rent a scooter to ride the whole family around the massive lagoon and resort grounds, but figuring how to work that out between the baby’s sleep and our short stay didn’t allow for it to happen.

A trip this short wasn’t without the usual battles and tantrums that happen with a toddler. On one occasion, our toddler refused to go outside to explore while I put our baby to nap and instead decided to giggle and run around the room which led to a tantrum with his mother outside when she removed him so the baby could properly fall asleep. The screaming was audible from inside the tent as it took our son around 20 minutes to calm down outside while walking away.

On another occasion, after asking my son to use the toilet (which he refused) before we went to the lagoon, 10 minutes later I noticed him squatting in the water acting strange. After asking him again if he needed to use the toilet, to which he replied adamantly that he did not need to poo (I never specifically asked about poo), his face turned panicked one minute later responding in crisis he had to poo. I rushed out of the water carrying him for what seemed like the longest 5 minutes of my life to a toilet 800 meters away as he cried that he could not hold it in. Luckily, we got to the toilet before he could poo on me….

On our second night we moved into the standard tent accommodation that was quite a walk from the lagoon. Azwa and I have become experts at packing and unpacking minimal items when traveling with little ones, perhaps the greatest strength of us as a couple! While we weren’t looking forward to moving rooms after one day, on the plus side we were given a bathroom with a huge soaking tub and water jets. Complimentary bath bombs allowed for my wife, toddler, and I to enjoy a soak mid-day while the baby slept for a nap. This too, was quite a unique experience with the bathroom being outdoors.

Overall our stay was a pleasant one, quite surpassing our expectations of what Bintan island usually offers. It accomplished our goal of having a different activity for the tot as well as allowing us ‘moments’ of relaxation and just trying something new. Our son, sad to leave the resort, stated he would like to come back to Bintan and bring his school friends with him next time. My wife and I, on the other hand, were just happy to be fortunate enough to add lasting memories with our young family, even if half the time we were rushing to nap a baby or battling a toddler tantrum. Back to Singapore!