In Continuum.

South By South East: The Hotel

The hotel came into view from over the hill where the golf course was. The first hint of the hotel presented itself to us in the form of a row of carefully trimmed bushes, with flowers of a dozen different colors making up the words "Welcome to Bintan". Only, the bushes for the last two letters were being destroyed and were withering when we arrived, so the bushes actually read "Welcome to Bintuii". We turned the corner at the junction, and there it was before us: The Hotel.

You would expect to have a substandard hotel after you've paid just a hundred and fifty dollars for the room as well as the breakfasts, added to those a bunch of freebies. At least that was what I had in mine before I started off this trip. After all, it isn't very easy to find a hotel for three days and two nights for just $150, but that was exactly what we found through the directory. The pictures we saw on the website were fancy, but we believed them to be pictures from the villa, instead of the rooms that we thought we were going to stay in. However, upon arriving at the hotel, it certainly did not look like it would accept a room rate of $150 for three days and two night. It was too grand and too beautiful to be that cheap, and as we paid for our rooms, I still had my doubts.

We were greeted with cool glasses of Jasmine tea, and the rather empty lobby with a common area in the middle. I did expect the hotel to be pretty unoccupied, but perhaps not nearly as empty as it was when we arrived. It isn't the school holidays period in Singapore, and it certainly is the case for a lot of countries in the region. But still, it was so empty that we could hear our own footsteps bouncing off the wooden beams above that crossed each other like the webs of a spider. A single triangle of light shone down from above where the tapered roof is, and the lobby ended off with a sort of balcony where you get to see the swimming pool below, followed by the beach just beyond that and then the ocean that stretches out into the horizon. It was a beautiful sight, just standing on the edge of the balcony with nothing in front of you as you breathe in those ocean air. You start to wonder if it is possible for you to sail in a straight line from where you are and then come back to where you are without anything coming in your way. Because standing there before the sea, everything just seemed infinitely possible.

We checked into our rooms soon afterwards, and here's the distribution: Joel, Jonathan and I in room one. Shen and E-fei in room two. Juliana, Cheryl and Kerri in the third. All our rooms have an oceanic view, and that was exactly what I made sure as I pulled open the curtains. It was a standard looking hotel room, and nothing too fancy about it. Two beds were there, with one extra bed being brought in soon afterwards. The television had everything we have in Singapore, including the local channels - which was surprising to me. We quickly dumped our luggages and met up with the rest to head out to town for our lunch. That was when it started drizzling outside the hotel, the first sign of the monsoon being upon us throughout the trip.

The hotel is actually a five star hotel, and that was clearly stated under the photographs of the presidents of Indonesia in the lobby, which makes it even more surprising that the accommodation was so cheap. Like everything cheap in this world, there is always a catch hidden somewhere in between, and I shall touch on that a while later. But first, here is what the hotel is like. It's not one of those hotels you see in Singapore that competes with the other buildings for the skyline. Like the Raffles Hotel, it is pretty short building, but it stretches wide onto either side of the land nonetheless. There are multiple pools around, with a lot of bars and cafes all over the place. The beach isn't the biggest beach in the world, but at least it felt more like a beach than the ones we have in Singapore, which are either synthetic in nature or just simply too crowded with families out on their family days.

The massage parlors look out into the ocean, with the basketball and volleyball courts being the same. However, like everything else in the hotel, they were empty. The employees of the place were just looking at us wherever we go, hoping that we'd spend our money for their services. It was a strange feeling to be stared at like that, which must have been why we wanted to get out of the hotel as soon as possible. However, that soon proved to be a mistake, and all we wanted to do was to get back into our rooms.