Ranoh Island Adventure - Part 2

So here's part 2 of the Ranoh island adventure.  You can't miss this colourful signboard the moment you set foot on Ranoh.

Welcome to Ranoh - RX100 Mk3

Ranoh Island Adventure - Part 1

Last week I just came back from an island trip to Ranoh with Lincoln and a couple of friends.  Ranoh island is a small isle off Galang Baru island (and Batam), which is accessible by the Trans Barelang bridge, followed by a 30 minute ferry ride from a jetty.  For the whole of this first part I just used my Sony RX100 Mk 3.

Screenshot from Google Map, Ranoh Island, there you are

A Small Batam Project

Earlier in October I went to Batam for a private project.  I hadn't been to Batam in a very long time so this short visit was quite refreshing.  Things in Batam change at quite a fast pace nowadays, no doubt tourism is still going strong despite the factories and shipyards having gone out of business.  Harbourbay itself is changing as Marriott is shaping up quite nicely.  This complex is looking more and more..... complex....   I had my X-T2 and the XF10-24mm F4 R OIS for this short project.

Sunset in Harbourbay

Batam Life - Part 5

Part 5 will be the last entry of my Batam Life series, this post consists of random shots of Batam.

Harbour bay during sunset - Samsung Galaxy S4

The Batam Life - Part 4

Part 4 will be about the famous Barelang bridge in Batam.  Barelang bridge is actually a series of bridges that connect Batam to the small neighbouring islands of Galang and Rempang.  The name "Barelang" is a short form of "Batam", "Galang" and "Rempang".  In total there are 5 bridges (If I remember correctly) with the first one being the grandest and main tourism icon of Batam.

Full view of the bridge, taken from outside a nearby seafood restaurant

The Batam Life - Part 1

Life in Batam is very different from Singapore.  Its amazing how these 2 places are just slightly more than 20 km away from each other and yet worlds apart, although some of the people are pretty much the same in terms of behaviour in both islands.

At first it was quite hard for me to adjust to the new house, new place and new life in Batam.  Fortunately we met a good friend of my wife's brother whom I'm really grateful for, he helped us so much to adjust to life in Batam.

One big change is shopping in the wet market in Batam.

Avava Fresh Market - nearest market to our house in Bukit Mas Nagoya

Plain Sailing in 2011

2011 was fairly uneventful.  The photography I did were mainly for the property my father works in.  at late 2010, a new site was due to be opened, 10 km further down from the original site of Bintan Agro Beach Resort - Bintan Cabana Beach Resort, so I had new things to capture for the website.  Then in late 2011, we added 6 suite rooms that soon became the main attraction in the Resort, again I had to take photos of the new rooms for the website. 

In my earlier post I did mention that I prefer this place better as the water was very much clearer.  And the rooms are better decorated and cozier.  We needed to add a new page for Cabana in the main website so I did some photography for the website again.

These photos are my personal collection that don't appear on the website, but I think just as good.

Walkway outside Suite Rooms

Mapur Island

When I worked in Bintan, I had the chance to visit an island which I think has the most beautiful beach in Western Indonesia - Mapur island.

The island is about 15-25 minutes away from Bintan Agro Beach Resort, depending on weather conditions.  Be ready to bring sun screen, shades and hats if you happen to go on the dry season.  I can assure you that the trip is definitely worth it!

The boat trip to Mapur

Bintan Memories

As I mentioned in my previous post, I started helping my father in Bintan at around mid-2010.  I really got deep into it at around 2011 and started to appreciate how beautiful the place really is.  The place has wonderful beaches although the capital Tanjung Pinang is somewhat quite underdeveloped - ever since I first started going there in year 2000 until 2010, the main street of Jalan Bakar Batu still looked the same.

But let's talk about the south-eastern coast where my father works.  The name of the resorts are Bintan Agro Beach Resort and Bintan Cabana Beach Resort (http://www.agrobeach.com - I was the one who oversaw the website building, so of course, I'm proud to promote it every now and then! ;p ).

I used the knowledge I acquired from my days holding the D90 and got to know my 5D Mark 2 better.  Daytime shots never disappoint, it's the blue hour shots that I really want to nail with the help of my 5D Mark 2.  I swear that my photos during this period were some of my best.  My favourite lens for these landscape shots was the one and the only EF 16-35mm F2.8L II.     

Here is a photo of a small island about 5 minutes away by ferry ride from Bintan Agro Beach Resort; the island is called White Sands Island.  It's in the itinerary of the Island Hopping activities.

Blue Sky,  Fine Yellow Sand - Cool Drinks and Shades Will Make This Perfect

Moving to Batam - November 2010

I resigned from my position in NYK back in April 2010.  After that I started helping my father in Bintan.  As I thought that it would be a permanent career change, I assumed that it would be logical to move to Indonesia, closer to where I'll be working.  Another reason is because I'll be earning Rupiah, living in Singapore would be too costly.

As Bintan (Tanjung Pinang) is 2 hours away from Singapore, my wife and I thought that Batam would be a better place to stay in.  It has better accessibility to Singapore with better facilities in general and definitely more developed than Bintan.  And so we made the decision to venture to the unknown - off we went to Batam.

We got ourselves a house in Batam and had it renovated.  My father originally bought the house a long time back and had the old building demolished and replaced with a new one.  And as I told him about my intention to stay in Batam, he let me stay in the house.  

By the time we thought the renovation had been done, we left Singapore for Batam.  But to our surprise, there were still minor completions needed on arrival - things that we didn't notice in the beginning such as water proofing the walls, adding shelfings in the cabinets, getting cutleries, cleaning equipments and basic things for daily activities.  So we ended up staying in the hotel for 1 whole week instead of the originally planned 3 days.  Not only that, we didn't have a car yet, and ordering one from the dealer needed 3 months.  So we resorted to walking and eventually purchased a scooter by December.  

We stayed in Swiss Bel-Hotel (now called Swiss Bel-inn).  I can't say it was unpleasant, but it was quite a trying experience.  My son was just 5 months old then.  So you can imagine he was eating canned fruit puree and milk all the time, I washed the bottles at the bathroom basin, sterilized the bottles using hot water and the three of us just slept on one bed.

Top: View from hotel balcony, Below: My wife feeding Lincoln on the bed