I have known her from her angst sec 1 days to her current nurse-going-about-business (literally) days. Conversely, she has known me from my emo-meets-ah lian lovechild days to my current, WAIT, am I still the same?!
But no matter. The point is, we have never traveled together in this 8 year friendship and so one day, she spontaneously decided she wanted a vacation. And since I had a Pulai Desaru voucher lying around, we decided to go!

SGD$130: 2D1N Standard Room Stay for 2 at Pulai Desaru Beach Resort & Spa + Breakfast (2-Way Land Transfer at an additional SGD$16)
We got our tickets from Desaru Resort Ferries at SGD$39 per person, round trip.
It was not easy getting here hahah.
There are two ferry terminals in Changi. For Batam, Bintan, and all things Indonesiany, it is the main terminal that everyone knows about. But this one exclusively serves Desaru only. My dad was pretty surprised it existed.
We collected our departure tickets from the counter. We were to leave Singapore (Changi) at 9:30am for Desaru (Tanjung Belungkor) at 10:00am. We reached at 9am so we could slowly chill but this place is pretty barren as you can see from the photos so we couldn't wait for the ferry hahah.
And true to tradition, it came five minutes late!
Stupid bag cramping my style.
She hid behind me to get a smaller face what a sneaky thing.
The morning view was great!
Shamelessly asked her to help me take photos despite everybody standing around at the bay waiting for the ferry to set up the crossing board and stabilize the boat. I have no social shame. And that's why I have better photos than them!
Me and my big hair trying to shrink my face.
Boarded the ferry after this!
I forgot what we chatted about how it was definitely something morbid because THAT'S WHAT SHE DOES TO ME, something about the ferry capsizing and her being a nurse, she could save herself but she can't swim.
Reached Tanjung Belungkor terminal way ahead of schedule, within an hour I think. We barely crossed customs when three steps later, a kindly looking man asked, "Nicole?" and when I nodded, led us to his shuttle.
And off we were!
I tried convincing her to wear my girly headband but she looked like she would die if she attempted so MY ATTEMPTS FAILED. Tried to put flowers in her hair too but she brushed them off. Woman does not appreciate nature.
Reached Pulai Desaru and even before we reached the reception, the manager rose from his seat and greeted us warmly. Props to this place for their guest recognition. He addressed me with, "Hello Nicole, how's your journey here?"
We checked in and headed over to our room.
Okay quick backstory.
Candice is pretty well-traveled, and expensively so. Her aunts would bring her out to grand countries at high expenses so she's had pretty good hotel experiences. Me, I travel budget so as long as the bed doesn't break, I'm happy.
This is her first time paying so little for a room. She expected fleas in the beds and holes in the tub for SGD$65 a night. I've paid SGD$45 a night for my cheapest Bangkok accomodation so I expected a fair bit from this place.
So in a stroke of great fortune, Pulai Desaru amazed us both!
She sneezed in this photo and we laughed till our stomachs broke.
Heh heh so cute.
These were taken on the second day, before we checked out. I wanted to take photos of everything because I wanted to give this place a glowing review. Along the way, I'll explain what I mean by fucking fantastic service.
We each had one big comfy bed. She managed to keep hers strangely neat, considering that for the entirety of secondary school, her stationary always spilling over onto my desk and her books shoved untidily under her table. My bed was pretty messy and I ate supper in it heh. I am losing it!!!
And this was our view from the balcony.
Isn't it gorgeous! Sorry I'm blocking the view hahah.
We headed over to our massage at around 10am. To be perfectly honest, their massage skills left much to be desired but their body scrub was pretty good. I felt smoother than a baby's ass when they were done with me.
Candice insisted the myth that you can't bathe after a massage is false and so we headed back up to our room for a quick shower. Since it was that early, we decided to drop by Lotus Desaru for their parasailing and jet-skiing.
We didn't know how to get there and I ended up quietly asking the manager for directions. It felt like such a betrayal of Pulai! But not only was he a sport about it, he even arranged a free shuttle to his rival resort for us.
We were so touched my god see what I mean by service?!
Zen-pretending is tiring.
Candice wanted to do the parasailing and since it was bloody good weather, she went ahead with it first. I thought it would be a repeat of my Batam experience, that the parasail would land into water when the wind dies down.
But nope! She landed right back where she took off!
LUCKY BITCH!
What a graceful, non-choking-on-water landing!
Anyway, while she was flying the crew started to hard-sell me the other sea activities. I intended to try jetskiing, but they warned that the waters are choppy today because of the oncoming rain and I can't set out alone.
The jetski was 55 rm for 20 minutes, which is pretty steep. But I really wanted to do something exciting so I asked if it was possible that I take 10 minutes tandem, and 10 minutes solo. And they obliged!
Out we skiied to sea.


I should upload the video.
At the beginning, I was still dry and glam. I smiled like a star and whipped my hair in the wind. Then, 10 seconds into jet off, the first wave came and slapped us in the face. He ducked so I got the full impact of the wave hahah.
It was tantalizing to be out so far at sea with such a naked vehicle. If a huge wave came, we would be swallowed full. If a strong wave came, we would be knocked over. But there we were, jumping over waves like a dolphin.

And it was my turn!
Tried to mount waves with the jetski AND I DID IT! We flew by so many waves and so many times I thought we were gonna capsize but hey my life must be made of titanitum whoop whoop!
The rain started bearing down towards the end, so I had to spit out a mix of sea water that slapped my face with every wave landing, as well as rain from my forehead cascading downwards. But my god was it electrifying.

There is nothing quite like this, I think. I have a natural phobia of the sea, and knowing I am this far out, charging through waves and not giving a fuck about neither rain nor sea, made me feel invincible. Fuck I love it.
Eventually my time was up and I dismounted, high and dizzy!
We went back to Pulai. It was late afternoon so we decided to take a dip before going for the firefly tour that Candice expressly wanted in the evening. I have a video of the pool that I will upload once this laptop stop being a bitch.
Right after swimming I got hungry even though we had hours till dinner time. We were both cold from the dip but I wanted ice cream and she had the biggest, "wtf who eats ice cream when they're freezing?!" face but bought one with me anyway heh heh.
Tried to ask for the fire flies tour when it was closing in onto the start timing. But the guy informed us that not enough people signed up and hence, it was cancelled. So instead, we grabbed dinner at the restaurant.
I think she had a rice set for 45 rm, while my fish and chips were 35 rm. The food was pretty ordinary, my fish was fried to death and I had to skin most of it before eating. Her rice was surprisingly good though.
We found ourselves a little hut!
We were so bored after dinner that we decided to hang at the kids room hahah. I rushed into this little house and she came in too heh heh. I also rocked on the green thing with my back facing her, talking about what to do tomorrow.
Little did I know she took a video and nope, that's not enough. She tried to upload it on Instagram with the caption, "check out my ride" or something HOW DARE THE WOMAN. I could've lost all my followers! Hahaha.
Headed up to our room to watch weird tv.
I got hungry as usual so this was my 25 rm hot dog!
We actually got cup noodles in the afternoon, because coincidentally, both of us like to curl up in bed with cup noodles when we go overseas. She attributes it to her lack of cooking skills when she was in England. Me, I just like salty soup.
Talked about all sorts of nonsense before we slept heh heh. We were thinking about terrorizing whoever borrowed the lobby Monopoly because we didn't want to play Scrabble. She ended up sleeping before we could hahah.
I fell asleep to Gabriel's voice heh heh.
In summary:
Jetski: 55 rm
Dinner: 35 rm
Supper: 25 rm
Cup noodles: 15 rm
Assorted snacks: 15 rm
Total: 130 rm // SGD$50
No comments:
Post a Comment