The Birthday Party

As promised, here are some pictures of people at the actual birthday party on Nikoi. I've tried to find ones where people are smiling and now have access to more pictures with me in.  Thanks to Apple, who seem to have really captured the ex-pat market, we've set up a shared photo stream so we can all see each other's pictures.  As I've got all these to choose from I've put some in from times other than the birthday party where they're good people shots, group photos etc.

Here's a group shot of us having shampers before dinner.

From left to right:

Shay - Zeenit's niece from Melbourne

Dorothy - South African living in Singapore and married to John

Tony - Shay's partner

Me

Carol - Brit. Used to live in Singapore but now lives in Kuala Lumpa. Married to Graham

Claire

John - married to Dorothy

Zeenit

Alex

Colin

Sue - Aussie kindly putting us up in Singapore with her husband Chris.

Hannah- daughter of Stewart and Andrea

Alex - Aussie living in Singapore, married to Sally

Sally - Aussie living in Singapore, married to Alex

Cindy - American living in Singapore, married to Dan

Andrea - Brit living in Singapore, married to Stewart

Stewart - Brit living in Singapore, married to Andrea

Graham - Brit married to Carol

Dan - American married to Cindy

Chris - Aussie married to Sue

Here's me and Claire

Tony and Shay

Alex and Zeenit posing for the snappers

Claire happy with a glass of shampers

Martin arranged for the staff to surprise us with a musical entry and flowers for Zeenit and a famous cocktail from uni for Alex.

The kids were roasting marshmallows on the beach with very long sticks

Here's us at dinner

We had duck ( all the food was wonderful)

Alex made a speech

Here are some shots from our arrival on the island:

Some lovely cocktails to welcome us:

We certainly seemed to enjoy them

As did these people

Here's Claire and I on the first night with Nikoi Sunset cocktails and the barbecue being prepared.

Finally, here's us leaving the island with Tony the manager.

Nikoi Island

We've now moved on to Nikoi Island which is an absolute paradise.  It's the ultimate in understated, ecologically sound luxury. A jungle island, ringed by a bright white sand beach where they've built a small number of fantastic chalets from local wood and thatch.  All of them are a stones throw from the sea, for someone who can't throw very well.  You fall asleep to the sound of lapping waves coming through the open front wall with, hopefully, a gentle breeze coming through the palm trees.  If not, there's a fan inside the mosquito net.  The service is amazingly friendly from the predominantly local staff, and so efficient but un-preprocessing that you hardly notice it until you wonder at how well something was done.

We're in a group of nearly 20 here for a long weekend to celebrate Alex's birthday.  A mixture of Brits, Aussies, South Africans and Americans.  The days are spent relaxing and playing about on and in the water.  All the waterspouts are included and you just go down to the beach and borrow what you need, with expert instruction if you want.  The evenings are spent wining and dining. In fact, there are three, 3-course meals a day of gorgeous, fresh Indonesian food.  We have a big table reserved for us, and these meals provide a great focal point for everyone to get back together.

Zeenit arranged special meals for the Friday and Saturday.  On Friday we had sundown cocktails, followed by a barbecue on the beach.  There were great seafood dishes such as a scallop salad, spicy fish in banana leaves and local squid.  We also had a whole lamb on a spit carved on to your plate, so juicy and tender.  On Saturday, it was canapés with champagne, followed by a big sit down dinner and then a party by the pool (well away from the other guests).  There were spectacular surprise fireworks laid on by the owner, and, of course, Alex got thrown in the pool.  But he kept his beer upright throughout. 

Anyway, enough words, here are some pictures.

Here are Alex and Dan riding at the back of the boat between Bin Tan and the island.  We for a ferry from Singapore to Bin Tan in Indonesia, drove across Bin Tan and then a power boat across to the island.  About 2 hours in all.

And here's Claire with a different approach.

Here's a view of the island as we approach.

 

And here's our luggage being unloaded.

Here's some views of our chalet and the beach.

This is the view out from in front of the bed.

The downstairs deck area, with its own separate bathroom.

Our chalet from the beach in front.  The main beach is further round, but you can just go in and swim here.

The main beach from the barbecue area

The beach outside our chalet

A beach babe

A hard days work for some.

Next post, I'll put up some pictures of the birthday party as I know you like to see who everybody is.

Tree-tops, Monkeys and Raffles

After our first proper nights sleep for what seemed ages, we went out with Alex, Colin, Shay (Zeenit's niece over from Melbourne) and her partner Tony from the same city, for a walk in the park near the MacRitchie reservoir.  Part of which is a tree-top suspension bridge.

Here it is:

Here's Alex crossing it:

And hers Claire, with Alex and Tony in the background.

There were also lots of steps, which certain members of the party were unhappy about :-)

The other highlight was the monkeys, although they're a bit like the seagulls at St. Ives in that they go for anything that looks like food, and they're very good at spotting food.  One young girl had just got a plastic bag out to have a chocolate bar and a monkey had pounced, grabbed the lot and was through the wrapper in to the bar before the noise had died down.  They look cute otherwise though.

In the evening, we hit the town.  Singapore slings at Raffles, of course.

Then the Equinox bar for the views and likewise the weird ship on top of the marina bay sands complex.

And finally, to Chinatown for a meal. Sorry to Colin and Shay for catching them eating.

Next, off to Nikoi.

Arrival in Singapore

It's taken a while to get round to this.  First too busy and then limited internet access, but I should be able to get 2 or 3 posts up now.  Here's the first.

Travelling to Singapore all went very well. We managed to carry our bags to the tube station OK. What makes them so heavy? We thought we were going to travel light! Easy and quick on the tube and Heathrow Express to Heathrow, I even managed to pick up some id photos at Paddington for my Cambodia entry visa. The only bit that took ages was picking up our pre-ordered currency at the airport.  They had to re-enter everything on their system that I'd already entered on-line, and for 3 lots of currency that took ages.  Next time I'll do it earlier and get it delivered to home.

The flight itself, with Singapore Airlines, was great.  The best economy long-haul I've ever flown.  Brilliant service, huge number of good films to choose from and excellent food, especially the Thai chicken red curry.  Singapore airport was huge, spotless and empty of people.  It had the smartest airport loos I've ever seen and we walked through the empty immigration hall that at heathrow would be thronged with hundreds of frustrated people.  Straight out to be met by the smiling Daniel who was to whisk us off to Zeenit's flat.  Ironically, the main talking point was how dry it was, with it being some sort of record time since Singapore had seen any rain. Very different from the situation we'd left at home.

The rest of the day was a short nap, as we hadn't slept much on the plane, followed by lunch at a local food court, a bit of chilling on Zeenit's balcony and then an evening dinner and drinks party to celebrate Zeenit's recent birthday and meet some more of the people who are going to Nikoi.

Time for some photos:

We're actually staying with Chris and Sue, some friends of Zeenit and Alex in the same block.  They're on the ground floor and this is the view of the short walk they have each morning to the pool.

Here's Zeenit to liven up the scene:

This is Claire looking round Alex and Zeenit's living room.

And this is their kitchen, the bomb shelter is round the corner, no really.

Here's a view of the block from the outside.

Here's Zeenit with her cake in the evening.

And here's some bad shots of people chatting at the party. The guy in the purple t-shirt is Colin who is also over from the UK. He used to work at Logica.

When we staggered home to our room, we were lucky to see the Gecko living in the kitchen. Considered a prize asset apparently as they eat insects.

That's enough for this post. Next I'll tell you about the tree-top walk and a night on the town.