Tanjung Pinang - A Day Trip on a Rented Vehicle with Driver @ Bintan Island

Remember my post on car rental at Bintan Island? This entry would elaborate further, on a chronological basis, on what the family did on that specific day away from Bintan Lagoon resort.

Eko, our friendly chauffeur, arrived with his seven-seater sedan ten minutes before the agreed time. Knowing he was early, he waited for us patiently outside the villa (if it was me, i would have 'chased' my customers and asked them to hurry up)!!

The day started out really gloomy with a light drizzle. By the way, I didn't know Bintan Lagoon resort was so huge; to drive to the gatehouse, it took us five minutes and to get out of the Bintan resorts zone, it was another eighteen minutes!

After close to seventy five minutes, we reached our first stop; the spacious Avalokitesvara Graha Temple [大观音山梅峰寺].

Maybe due to the ongoing Chinese new year festivities, the temple was not as crowded as expected although it was said to be a major attraction in Bintan.

Main shrine of the temple that hosted the tallest statue of the Goddess of Mercy in Indonesia. From this angle, the building seemed short but it had in reality another four higher levels.

Here's the famous Bodhisattva; measuring 6.5 meters long, 1.4 meters wide and 16.8 meters tall, the seated brass statue was covered in 22 carat gold!

Happy Buddha [彌勒佛] - an equally popular Bodhisattva in Chinese dominated regions. For more information, please click here. 

Flanking Guanyin on both sides were numerous colourful statues; many of whom i initially thought were Taoist deities but they turned out to have Buddhist titles. 

What i found more interested were the intricate details given to the three dimensional stone carvings making up the walls and pillars of the shrine!

Jovyn was simply enjoying herself by running here and there. Kids. 

If not for the incessant rain and strong wind, i would most probably explore the rest of the temple, especially the huge compound right in front of the main shrine. 

Monks in many bigger temples would grow crops and vegetables to supplement their food supply. Down here in this temple, the king of crop was the dragonfruit (guess they were grown more for sale instead of personal consumption within the temple)

Another towering statue; albeit of 地藏王菩萨 [Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva]. We shall see more statues later at the 500 arhats temple! 

Praying was a must for my mom! However, we realised that most visitors would separately go into a room and speak with an elderly monk; i bet there would be spiritual advice being dispensed. 

Thirty minutes in the car brought us to a 'shopping' area in Bintan's main township; Tanjung Pinang. I was at the exact same place ten years ago when i participated in an army medical exercise. And it has not changed a single bit since then! 

We requested for a change within five minutes of arrival and was taken to a more modern building; Mall Tanjung Pinang which has a Ramayana department store, fast food outlets, an arcade, shopping kiosks and a supermarket.

Lunch @ Charlie's Chicken [own expenses].

KFC was way better! The deep fried chicken parts at Charlie's Chicken were too dry and lacked an outstanding flavouring. They should thank their lucky stars that i was super hungry. 

Menu for your reference. Those could not understand Bahasa Indonesia may wish to note that kopi is coffee, teh is tea, susu is milk, panas means hot, coklat is chocolate, jus is juice, nasi is rice, sop is soup. 

The shopping kiosks failed to excite me and the same goes for the department store. For my family members, it was a different story; they shopped for an hour in Ramayana! 

I preferred to spend my time at the supermarket where things were so much cheaper than what i can get in the resorts! Get your stash of snacks, biscuits, chocolates, fruits, instant noodles, daily household applications, soft drinks, facial and hair products, fresh milk, yakult etc etc.

As our family was not sure on what was available in Bintan, we were actually very well stocked in our supplies and only purchased a few items in this supermarket.

Cheap magnum ice cream at only 11,000 rupiah! I mentioned this in my post on local market near to Pasar Oleh Oleh and this was the evidence! 

Buying one was necessary to partake in the luxurious action of biting through the rich chocolate casing and hearing the 'cack cack' sound commonly heard on Magnum television advertisement. 

Arcade to keep the kids occupied. 

On our way to another supermarket as we desperately needed some charcoal for our BBQ and didn't want to pay exorbitantly for a pack at the resort. 

Saw a really young boy (no more than five years ago) selling newspapers dangerously on the busy road. The plastic bag he was carrying contained money from the sales he made. That's the harsh reality in life that many of us in Singapore have never experienced. 

Anyway, this was the local supermarket that offered even more things than Mall Tanjung Pinang! 

There were definitely more locals which means language barrier was also significantly higher. It took half an hour for them to understand i need charcoal and liquid fuel! 

Local transportation for us means buses and trains. In Bintan, local transport is via passenger vans and motorcycles. 

Next temple stop: the impressive 500 Luohan temple. In view of the many pictures of this temple, a separate post was published earlier and you may refer to it here. 

Final destination: Dinner at a Kelong! Check out my review here.

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To rent a car with chauffeur, please refer to this post.

Additional Information

Note that the itinerary is up to you to plan (you can choose to include spas, historical sites etc) but do keep in mind that from the exclusive Bintan resorts zone, it would take around ninety minutes to drive to Tanjung Pinang. 

For a more comprehensive guide on the attractions in Bintan Island, click here.