We stayed at Nirwana Resorts Hotel, which was quite pricey ($60/pax/night) but it's good because all the activities are basically around where we stayed, and the service overall was very good. So we paid more for convenience and service I guess.
I don't know what is it about the trees but it somehow looks very nice and islandy? (See the distant trees in the background). The long stretchy trunks and how they lean in a very specific arrangement.
The building behind me is the Activities Centre, which is basically a 5 minute walk from the main building where our rooms were. The range of activities here were bowling, tabletennis, elephant riding, horse riding, archery, air rifle, flying fox, kayaking, bodyboarding, etc. (All of the above for free if you buy the all in pass at SGD$40++)
There was even an area called the 'mini Zoo', which was basically a short walkway with a range of animals along the side, such as pythons, some fish, some birds, guinea pigs (yes, in the wild. super cute, those little balls). No payment to walk through it.
Can't really tell but this is me Bodyboarding!!
Bodyboarding turned out much more fun than I expected. You take this board, go out into the ocean, and try to catch a wave to ride it towards the shore. It's hard to explain how it is done, and all of us could only do it like 50% of the time, but you have to jump at the perfect timing to catch the wave, otherwise you'll only move forward a bit and not coast quickly forward a long distance.
(Ok I initially wanted to attach a bodyboarding video here but realized it was way too pro compared to what we did. We rode waves that were much noober (tho much much stronger and higher than Singapore's waves))
We had dinner at The Kelong Restaurant,which is basically an al fresco restaurant on stilts overlooking the water! It has a super romantic ambience and great!
There's this nice boardwalk which you can walk down from the restaurant. We got to watch the sunset! Really pretty :)
We ordered 2 crabs, one veg, one calamari, one large plate of fried rice, and a fish, and our bill came up to SGD$33 / pax. Not sure if that's reasonable price but it was quite filling and tasty! Crabs were meaty too (though it could have been because we had 2 crab experts with us who picked the crabs for us ^^ )
Included in our room package was a breakfast buffet, which had a decent spread of both western and asian stuff, such as sausages, eggs, crossaints(sp?), noodles/rice, fruits, juice, milk, cereal, toast, nasi lemak ingredients + porridge, etc.
After that we went kayaking, which turned out not as fun as bodyboarding because it's pretty hard to stay out in the sea with the waves constantly bashing us back, and ... kayaking is so much more tiring and less fun than bodyboarding :(
In the afternoon, we did more activities (part of our all-in pass)
I really like vivian and my poses here! I told her we look like tributes from the same District lolol. #hungergamesreferenceyo
I kinda sucked at archery, shooting all around the bullseye and hitting it only once (the yellow zone). Plus it was really tiring as it takes considerable effort to draw the arrow back each time you fire.
I was much better at shooting heh. Shot down many targets. BANG BANG.
We also went on an elephant ride - one short 5 minutes ride around this area. It was so painful! There wasn't a seat on the elephant so I basically sat on its back which was quite pointy. But ok the rider with me was nice to chat with so it took my mind off the discomfort. He has been doing this for 20 years! That's crazy. Can't imagine such a simple life... riding elephants everyday.
The cool trees I was talking about.
Overall a pretty fun and chill trip - we chilled a lot on the beach (and thus I became super black and abit burnt), and it was a very relaxing time there - just sitting on the soft sand (like, really soft) and letting water run by underneath me.
It was good company too, everyone was fun and could get along. Wish I could have more of these getaways with such company :)
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