Tanjung Pinang, Indonesia (Day 1)

I had originally planned to visit Thailand and Vietnam, but sadly both will not be happening. Flights to Vietnam are too expensive due to the holiday season. As for Thailand, it was only several weeks ago that anti-government riots completely shut down Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport and forced all flights to be cancelled. The airport has since reopened, but the political situation is still unstable. While the airlines will fly to Bangkok, none of them will guarantee that I can return. I thus decided that Thailand should best be saved for another day.

I was determined though to backpack into one of Southeast Asia's rougher parts. A quick search on Wikitravel informed me about the town of Tanjung Pinang in Indonesia. Indonesia is comprised of over 17,000 islands. Tanjung Pinang sits on the southern end of the island of Bintan, in Indonesia's Riau province. The town is accessible via a 2 hour ferry ride from Singapore that costs SGD $59 roundtrip (USD $42). Living expenses on the island were also purportedly cheap. I thus decided to give it a go.

Early Thursday morning, I met my friend Kay over at the Somerset MRT stop. We needed to be at the Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal on Singapore's southeastern side by 11:30, and are already running late. Once at the terminal, I checked in at the Penguin counter and collected my tickets. The return ticket back to Singapore did not have a departure time. The representative tells me that I will need to confirm this at the Penguin office on the Indonesian end. "Where is it located?" I ask. She responds that it is "within walking distance".

The trip over is the rockiest bum boat ride ever. The strong ocean currents tossed our boat from side to side, and the water splashes overhead several times. Kay's clothes are soaked. The passenger in front of me suddenly vomits over the side of the boat. I don't think I get seasick, but fear that I may be next. I look at my watch and pray for the journey to be over soon.

We finally approached the port of Tanjung Pinang 2 hours later. A panoramic glimpse of the town from off the coast showed a rough and rugged terrain, with tin-roof houses built on stilts over the water and motorbikes whizzing along the coastline. The immigration counter in the port was dark and dank, with barely any English signs. Kay and I were scanning our surroundings when one of the uniformed policemen came over and grabbed our passports. We were bewildered for a moment, but then saw that he was gesturing us to move into another line. He passes our passport to a friendlier looking lady behind a thick glass counter, who tells us that the visa charge is US$10. We quickly pay up, and then move our way out of the port.

Our first order of business is to find the local Penguin ferry office to confirm our return ticket back to Singapore. All of the signs are in the local language, Bahasa Indonesia. I look closer to see if I could possibly spot the Penguin ferry logo, but no luck. A swarm of taxi and moped drivers follow us and offer rides to the resorts and beaches on the other end of the island. We wave them all off. One driver, an old man perhaps in his 60s, continues to pester us. We try to ignore him.

"Where you going?" he asks in English.
I briefly respond, "Penguin", hoping that it would brush him off.

He offers to take us there in his unmarked car (sketchy??), but we just want him to provide the directions.

"You no understand," he says. "Eight kilometers."

He motions us out of the port gates. Not wanting to be left behind, and feeling a bit helpless, we cautiously follow along. Everyone is staring at us, and we're aware that we are the only foreigners around.

The "within walking distance" Penguin office was reached by making a left outside of the port gates, walking 3 blocks into the town of Tanjung Pinang, turning right and walking another 3 blocks, turning another right and walking 2 blocks and then turning left and walking 4 blocks into the central market. The town had no street signs, and there were no readily available directions. How in the world did they expect us to find this place? We confimed our reservations while the old taxi driver continues to pester us about a ride to the resorts. We continue to say "no", and hand him SGD$2 as a tip for guiding us to the Penguin office. He finally leaves after 10 minutes.

With our return tickets confirmed, we set out to look for a hotel. TripAdvisor mentioned a Hotel Sadaap that was reputedly good. The only "directions" listed though were that the hotel was away from the town, up a hill, right next to a monument that looked like a scythe. It was 85 degrees out, and 91% humidity. Sweat rained down our bodies, and the weight from our backpacks did not help. We somehow found the hotel, but were advised by the front desk (which was really just a local guy sleeping on a couch out in front) that there was no hot water or air-conditioning and suggested that we try Hotel Rama up the street. Ha! At least he was honest. We stumbled along for a little bit more, and settled upon the next hotel.


We then set off to explore the town of Tanjung Pinang by foot. There were no sidewalks. We competed with the mopeds and cars for space on the streets, with the latter honking their horns whenever they wanted to pass. The old and moldy buildings gave the town a grimy feel that contrasted sharply with the lush, green banana trees along the road. The smell of raw sewer and exhaust fumes permeated the air. Vendors sold satay chicken out of small pushcarts. Local men idly hung around street corners.

We were looking for a place to have lunch, but all of the local restaurants were dark and empty. They seemed rather sketchy to me, and I wasn't even sure if they were open for business. We took our chances at a spot on the corner of one of the bigger streets in town.

The ready made dishes were stacked one on top of the other in the sun, and hygiene was probably questionable. At least the place was bright and airy though.

We asked the waiter about the cost of each dish. He quoted a cost of 200-300 rupiahs (about USD$0.03). We thought the prices were incredibly cheap, and ordered 7 different dishes. We figured that the total bill, including drinks, would come to no more than 5000 rupiahs.
Our bill somehow came out to 99,500 rupiahs. I asked the waiters to double check their calculations several times, and each time the bill came out to a different amount: 99,500 rupiahs, 91,000 rupiahs, SGD$20, 110,300 rupiahs. It turns out that not only did our waiter mean 2000-3000 rupiahs per dish, but we were being charged per piece in each dish. In other words, if we were quoted 3000 rupiahs for egg curry, that meant 3000 rupiahs PER EGG in our curry. Nonetheless, this was still a big difference from our original bill estimate. I suspected they were taking advantage of us, and had an argument with the stall owner. In the broader scheme of things, the check was no more than USD$10. However, I had to argue with them out of principle. I sat there for 30 minutes bickering with one of the waiters who spoke Mandarin. I considered going to the police department right next door for help, but the local police was probably even more corrupt. I finally told them that I would pay no more than 90,000 rupiahs, and considered it an education expense.

Our lunch experience gave me a very gnawing, uneasy feeling that everyone was trying to take advantage of us. We would need a heightened sense of caution and alertness to survive in this town. The locals clearly knew we were foreigners because we were two shades lighter than everyone else.
I suddenly remembered us leaving our passports with the hotel front desk, and grew cold with fear. My gut tells me that our passports are not safe, and I have this mortal fear that I will be stranded in this town. It's the first time in my Asia trip that I've feared for my own safety. I went down to the front desk to retrieve our passports, and learn that we needed to pay first before they would give it back. They were holding our passports as ransom! I immediately raced back to our hotel room, asked Kay for 185,000 rupiahs, then raced back down to retrieve our passports. All of the documents were thankfully still intact.

We're exhausted from both the heat and the scamming, and take a short break in our hotel room. We hear through our windows the Adhan blaring from the local mosque loudspeaker to call people for one of their five daily prayers. Indonesia is the largest muslim country in the world, and religious devotion permeates much of daily life. The local television programming featured Indonesian music with religious lyrics, lectures by religious leaders or dramas infused with religious themes. It was overly oppressing and dogmatic for me, and I consider myself as being religiously conscious!

We warily headed to a local seafood restaurant for dinner. As we waited for the hotel shuttle service to arrive, I noticed that an overwhelming majority of the hotel patrons (and the town of Tanjung Pinang in general) are men. "Where are all of the women?" I thought to myself. I had this very uncomfortable feeling that they were all staring at me. The shuttle service (which was really just a guy in an SUV) finally came, and drove us to a restaurant called Se Einam. The rode outside was extremely dark with barely any street lighting.

We tried to learn from our earlier lunch experience by asking for the price of everything at dinner up front. The waiter quoted us 25,000 rupiahs for cockle shells, 75,000 rupiahs for pepper crab, 28,000 rupiahs for kangkong belacan (stir-fried water spinach), 25,000 rupiahs per bottle of Bintang Beer for Kay, and 6,000 rupiahs per can of chrysanthemum tea for me. I figured our whole bill would come out to less than 200,000 rupiahs. As we waited for our food to arrive, two waitresses brought over a plate of Otah Otah (Indonesian smoked fish paste) and shrimp crackers. These are not free. I quickly had the waiters remove them.

Our food was tasty, but cold. Even the rice was cold. The waitresses brought over a plate of fruit as we were about finished with our meal. This, I concluded, was also not free. Kay and I left it by the side of the table. Our bill showed a total cost of 250,000 rupiahs. We were being overcharged AGAIN! I was livid, and stormed down to the cash counter to have my second argument of the day.

"This bill is incorrect," I said. "You charged me 35,000 rupiahs for the cockle shells when it should be 25,000. You charged me 80,000 rupiahs for the crab instead of 75,000. The kangkong should be 28,000 and not 30,000. There's also an additional 8,000 rupiahs on here for something I did not order."
"Oh, that's for the fruit," said the waiter.
"I didn't touch the fruit. You can go up and check," I said.
The waiter conceded with me on the other charges, but would not budge on the cockle shells.
"The cockle shells are 35,000, not 25,000," he said. "You must have misheard me."
"No, I did not" I said. "You said 25,000. How can you do business like this? You need to honor the price that you quoted."

I went back and forth between the waiter for 30 minutes while Kay (who does not speak Mandarin) looked on. About 90% of the small businesses and restaurants in Indonesia are owned by the Chinese, and thus command of Mandarin is very valuable. A huge golden Buddha statue rested on the restaurant counter. I remember thinking to myself that no god and no buddha would bless these scammers with the way they're doing business. In the end the restaurant and I agreed to 200,000 rupiahs. We paid and left, cursing at them and their buddha as we walked out.