Life, as it goes.

I am not hurrying it up but this is how it actually happened, the last lap of our journey was meant for doing nothing. Lazing around in the sun on the beach was the plan so it isn't very eventful.

On Day 7 of the holiday the third lap of our journey had started. We were to go reach at 10:00 a.m. at the Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal from where we would get a ferry to Bintan Islands, Indonesia. By now we were experts on Singapore public transport so we took a taxi from the hotel, one trip on foot with baggage was enough for us and from there took a train to the nearest station. Passenger service at the station gave us the bus number for the terminal.

The bus was on time to the second and we reached the Ferry Terminal where a lady from our tourist company was waiting for us. After checking in and immigration, we got into the ferry. Now for me the word ferry brings an image of a motorboat with horizontal wooden planks for seats, peeling paint on the sides and a smell of wet, rotten wood which we normally board from the Gateway of India but here as I stepped into the ferry I was stunned, the inside looked no less than an airplane. It was airconditioned obviously, also had a T.V, a snack bar and toilets.

The ride to Indonesia was uneventful except for R feeling a little queasy due to the motion of the boat. He normally has this problem in closed vehicles and uneven motion. I had kept cloves which helped him feel better. At Bintan Islands the immigration and check-in were quick but it took time for the baggage to arrive.

A shuttle bus dropped us to our resort and we gasped in amazement at the beauty of the sea in front of us. It was of a deep blue colour with white sands and waves lolling slowly. It was mid-day but R went in for a swim before lunch. After that was a series of swim, eat, sleep, swim, eat, read, laze around, sleep, eat, walk around, swim ...

Thats how the two days passed. Interestingly Indian holiday makers have not yet discovered Bintan and so we did not meet any Indians except for a small family of parents and daughter who had come from Singapore but were originally from Mumbai. While R was not in the mood for trekking I did a bit of it walking on the beach from one end to the another, through the water in some places, on rocks in another.

One highlight of our stay in Bintan was the high tide at mid-day on the second day. The waves were more than a meter high and though I know swimming the sight of a wave coming at you, un stoppable by any force on earth, swelling each second, bigger and bigger till it towers over you and breaks on the beach with white, salty foam is mesmerising. I was scared, every time the wave broke over me, knocking my breath away and submerged me into the sea I would swear to walk back to the beach but then the next wave would entice me and I would stay, challenging it to engulf me into its enormity. The sea gave me a good bashing but I don't think I have had such fun anywhere before. I also realised the bond a surfer has with the waves, it inexplicable but real.

So, basically we chilled out the last two days of the holiday. Swimming in the sea to the heart's fill and hogging away to glory. It was with a lot of sadness that I said good-bye to the sun because the next time I saw a sunset it would be from my apartment in Mumbai.