Apia Samoa

Across the road from Aggie greys hotel, looking toward the Marina.

Canon collection at the Rental car firm. Well guarded.

 Memorial to the first missionary's who converted them all.

Colourful cafes at the Marina. pleasantly cool for a glass of wine in the evening, watching boats come and go.There are no pretty beaches in the Apia area..

Samoan buses and Fish Market.

The Samoan people are very deeply religious, many of the colourful buses had religious slogans on the side. There were many many Churches around the island, seemed to us that there were more Churches than people but on Sunday they were all full of beautifully dressed people..... all in snowy white clothes.

We just loved the open air buses with no glass in the windows, cost is very cheap, service is good and the other passengers are so respectful and curtious every time I got on the bus someone who was sitting at the front would immediately stand and give me their seat if there were no other seat someone would jump onto another Samoan's knee so iIcould sit down...... amazing.

 We caught on of these colourful buses into city centre each day to buy fruit and chicken buns from the market, chicken buns are an ordinary bun with chicken cooked inside them, really yummy.

 The large rounds of fish are steaks of big game fish, like Albacore Tuna and Yellow fin tuna, very cheap.Cost was $12 Tala island money so about $8 NZ money, would be more like $80 at home! If you could buy it.

We enjoyed visits to the fish market, seeing the selection of different colour size and shape of fish plus lobster and crab and other things too; the man at the top is holding a sea snake!.
Our friend Lena from the market cooked us up a good feed of fish and chips. This dear lady whom we visited every day, presented me with a hand made lava lava on our last day, she tied it on me. Such an honour to be given this, she was a delight..

Samoa.

Aggie Greys Hotel Apia Samoa.a grand mansion rather like an old Southern American plantation house.

 Little bridge over a Water lily pond outside our apartment.

 Erle with Samoan statue in the garden

Me with an angry looking statue in Aggie greys Hotel garden.
Aggie Greys Hotel was very elegant in an old fashioned kind of way, also very expensive, especially to dine there, so we didn't! As we found the temperature so hot we spent a lot of the day lounging around in our air conditioned room reading. Til we swam in the pool and lay in the shade for  awhile, mid afternoon. Evenings were just the right temperature for us so we went out walking to find a nice restaurant for dinner.

Last few days at Club Med Bintan Island.

The next day our good friends were leaving, they decided we should all meet up at the pool straight after breakfast, in our swim suits and make a valiant effort to drink the cocktail bar dry!

We gathered at the pool and started ordering our cocktails all different types, we were not fussy! We swam every now and again as we got too hot in the tropical sun, all the while we chatted and laughed til it was lunch time and Raf and Scott had to be on the bus to leave this lovely place. We were all rather sad as we shall not ever meet again, amazing how well we had got on together as there was a huge age differance between us, from 75 years to 26 years.
Erle and I were rather subdued for an hour or so then we took ourselves off to the Archery Ground and learned a new sport. Erle turned out to be quite good at this and even won a medal for his efforts, I was very on and off and won nothing, any good shots were flukes!
A singer from the band who entertained us offered to draw a henna tattoo on my hand, it is a fish a seahorse and a guardian to protect us. I was very honoured by this gift.
We filled the last 4 days with swimming and archery and eating!

We can thoroughly recommend Club Med Bintan for a great holiday.

Kayaks and sail and Brazillian show night

Today we decided we would go out in the kayaks right after breakfast. The day was already hot, just walking down the beach in the soft sand to the kayaks was tiring, then standing around waiting for our kayaks also seemed very warm. We had to don big life jacket vest that also heated us up, but once we got out on the water in the pleasant breeze it was all worth while, we paddled up and down the beach and had fun splashing each other. We had intended paddling on around the headland to see what was around the corner. The man in-charge of the kayaks said there is a golf course around the corner but it is totally out of bounds we had to stay within sight of him or he would come and tow us back to shore! So we did stay within his sight and behaved ourselves. it was great fun.


Erle decided to book a sail boat for the afternoon as he enjoys sailing, so do I but I was already sunburned enough for one day and declined to join him. I suggested that Scott might like to go out sailing with him but the two of them were going our to the Elephant park to ride the elephants. We did this for free right here at Club Med but they had missed the visit of the elephant to the complex.
This is the last day at Bintan for Scott and Rafaella, so they took the opportunity. We are going to really miss our friends they have been so much fun, it has made our holiday so much better.

I spend a lovely quiet peaceful afternoon reading in the shade of the coconut trees with cocktail in hand , I just watched as Erle sail right up to the rocks at the end of the beach, and then have the embarrassment of being towed back by the man in-charge of the equipment. He enjoyed himself apart from being towed home by the man with the jetski! He tells me the wind caught him unawares as he raced along and didn't notice how close he was to the rocks.

In the evening it was a Brazillian night on the stage for our entertainment, very colourful, noisy, energetic,and entertaining and very much Rafaella's thing, she was disappointed that she could not join in with the dancing from her homeland, but she is still in the wheelchair unable to put any weight on the ankle. We did stay on for the party afterwards and enjoyed the fireworks and more dancing and also some nice Brazillian type cocktails, yummy.

Day trip to Tanjung Uban, Bintan Island.

After a lovely lazy day yesterday we were out on the beach soon after breakfast for a long swim, and looking at the coloured fish in the water swimming with us. There was a wide variety of them too. We settled down under the beach umbrellas on the sun loungers and started to read our books, but soon we heard thunder crashing around in the heavens big black clouds race over us, so we made our way in-doors just before the rain started, it seems to rain most days, but just for a short burst then the sun is out again, plus it never gets cold at all, still stays hot and humid.

We ran into Rafaella and Scott and suggested that we would hire a taxi for 4 hours and all of us head off to the larger town of Tanjung Uban to have a look around, we assured them as taxi drivers ourselves that the wheel chair would be no trouble at all, we knew how to fold them up and put them in the boot of the vehicle.
After lunch we headed off in the cab with a man said to know no English, but once again after a while of listening to us he found he did know a little and told us all he could about the things we were seeing along the way. The 4 of us had great fun when we arrived in the big town and put Rafaella back into the wheelchair and wheeled he all around the narrow streets even into the shops. We were interested in the fashion in some of them, rather different, what the local Muslim ladies wear.

I took a photo of Erle beside a delivery motorbike with its big wicker basket of goods on the back, there were many of these around.

Some of the scenery as we drove around was unsusual with strange mounds with trees a top of them, we wondered about them.

We decided we should have some genuine Satay, you know chicken on a stick and asked the driver where we could get some, he told us because of Ramadan it would be difficult to find any but he took us to a small shop and order some for us. When it was all cooked and looked so nice he told us it was Bambi! Rafaella and I, said not Bambi can't eat Bambi, so Scott said no its a much older deer, Rafaella said sort of like Bambis Mother! Erle said no it was just an old random unrelated deer, so with that settled we all ate and enjoyed the venison satay which was very special we gathered since there are no deer in Bintan. Expensive too I think, but Scott paid for them as we were paying the taxi.
The driver then showed us all the seafood restaurants built out over the water on stilts,we didn't bother going into them as we have plenty of lovely fresh seafood at Club Med.
We then asked the driver where all the people lived and where they worked.He drove us to several big buildings where clothes were sewed and motor bike were assembled and electrical appliances were made, outside each were hundred of motor cycles of the workers. He then to us to masses of compounds of two and three story building that the workers lived in, rather scruffy close together not very appealing living quarters we thought.
Rafaella took this photo and some others, as my camera had ran out of power by this stage.


Next he drove us to the Temple complex, with Chinese and Buddhist temples.
We climbed the stairs dragging the wheelchair, so we could all light some inscence in the temples and place it in the sand in a big silver drum with lions carved on the sides. We were fortunate that an elderly Chinese man showed us around and showed us what to do in the Temples. They were quite large and so open. Lots of bright red colour in the Chinese one.
There was also a big Muslim Mosque near by but we didn't go into that.
Soon it was time to head back to club Med, but on the way the kind helpful driver pulled us into a small fishing village and arranged for us to all have a coconut to drink, now we travel a lot but this was only the second time we had actually drunk coconut milk straight from the fresh coconut, and as we were thirsty we all drank the lot and enjoyed it.
In the photo you can clearly see all binding on Rafaella's ankle. and how sore it still is.
When we returned we all went to our rooms for a rest before the big evening meal, we all took cocktails back to our rooms to enjoy!
We went to the other outdoor restaurant for dinner just for a change. Erle and I were not that impressed as the meal was rather small, but it was a nice tender steak. However the setting was very special overlooking the beautiful beach, a million dollar view we all reckoned, plus a million stars overhead.
What a great day, it is amazing that the four of us get on so well together, after all Erle and I are older than their parents, we both have children older than them, but age seems completely irrelevant we all just are enjoying each others company. Wonderful, such nice people.

Our Friends accident in Bintan

Rafaella's unfortunate accident.
The next morning after a lesurely lovely breakfast we strolled down to the Panorama Bar with our books for a Latte. Hadn't been there long when Scott hurried in looking very distressed and upset he told us that Rafaela had gone over on her ankle awkwardly, while playing badminton last evening and now had a very painful badly sprained ankle and was on crutches. He said they were also in a room way up on the 3rd floor at the other end of the complex, almost next to where we had been placed. he said it took him hours to carry Raf up all those stairs last night and down again this morning. He asked just how we managed to change our room. We told him how tto do so, and said should they not have a room to change them into we would change rooms with them as we are now rested and quite able to manage now.But I also said to take Raf back to the hospital and ask the lovely Doctor Olivia for a wheelchair as i remember how hard it is managing crutches, specially on stairs.
About an hour later Scott came and said they now have a wheelchair and a new room almost next to us on a ground floor. Top marks to Club Med, managed beautifully.
We decided to swim after lunch today and in the pool so we could stay sitting under the umbrellas with poor Rafaella who was in great pain and all bandaged up. We were able to watch the water aerobics all the energetic people were doing.
Later when we returned to our room, we got a lovely surprise to see a monkey on our balcony, nibbling on the crusts we put out for the squirrel. We knew there were monkeys around, but this is the first we have seen.
My camera was cold and when I got it outside it flashed with steam that is why the monkey photo looks so foggy
We still all were able to go to the evening show and have a good time, it is so much easier for Raf and all of us now she has the wheelchair to move around comfortably in.
It was nice to have a lazy relaxed day around the pool.