Biking at Pulau Ubin

Boat uncle

Back in 2007 it was something of an adventure to go to Pukau Ubin. We started early in the morning, and after riding the MRT almost to the end, and then taking the bus another 26 stops, we reached something that was supposed to be a ferry terminal. There we had to wait for an eternity until the boat (or "floating vehicle" might be a better description) took us over to a tiny little island with a proper Kampong village life.
 

Hanna kamponging

Kampong is how Singaporeans lived back in the days, with wooden houses on pillars, no MRT or EPR (road toll). At Pulau Ubin, back in 2007, there was nothing to eat, see or do, but one could hassle with the locals to rent bikes and cycle around the island for a couple of hours.

Now we have entered the new and commercialized era of Singapore's history and probably also a new more comfortable level of living in my on personal history. Therefore The Pulau Ubin Adventure started with a comfortable taxi ride to the ferry terminal, that now really do looks like a ferry terminal. The boat was still a bit questionable, but that made the whole experience a bit more genuine. There was also absolutely no waiting time as there was lots of people everywhere. 

Sometimes knowing how to ride a bike is NOT something you remember your entire life.

Lots of people were also everywhere on the tiny little island. Forget about cycling around in no-mans-land. This is proper Singaporean park adventure: there are signs on where to go and what to do. For example what to take photographs of and  where to stop and look at the view. This is totally fine by me. Nature stays on it's on end, I get to enjoy my urbanized environment and we are somehow happily co-excisting.

Major minus on the island was the mad number of killer mosquitoes that was out in broad daylight. All blood suckers, including mosquito and vampires can only come out at night, that's a fact, so I don't know what was wrong with these little buggers. 

Messy food

Consu's first chili crab

Major plus on the island was an incredible seafood lunch. At a whopping $25/person we feasted on fresher than super fresh chili crab and pepper crab, fried baby squids, seafood fried rice and chicken noodles, oyster omelette, beers and more. And then we had ice cream before a relaxing fish reflexology session. 

Coming back to mainland we had ice-cream again, or well, some of us did, before heading off to do some sportswear outlet shopping (we all saw a need for this after sweating like mad for the entire day). Finally the entire gang had dinner at Cafe le Caire on Arab Street before heading home.

A great day, filled with everything you need; best friends, comfortable exercising, outdoorsy activities, excellent food, several ice-creams and some shopping on sale. 

Consu, Julia, Farhana, Alan, Hanna (photographer: Nima)