Cycling Trip to Pulau Ubin

Being right in the mid-point of my self-proclaimed long vacation, my bloody shoulder still refuses to recover, depriving me of the ability to engage in sports such as swimming and kayaking. Craving for some sports to keep myself alive, I decided to organize an adhoc cycling trip to Pulau Ubin together with Laibao. To my amazement, Eddy decided to join us when I casually told him about my plans for today.

The three of us met up at Changi Village at around 11 in the morning. Since none of us had really eaten lunch yet, we decided to have our lunch at Ubin itself. We strolled to the jetty. It took about 10 minutes before the bumboat was ready for embarkment. Along the way to Ubin, we snapped away with our cameras like no one's business. Another 15 minutes passed, and we have reached Ubin.

Eddy was probably the most excited the moment we alighted from the bumboat. He took shots of whatever crappy objects he could find. Time for lunch. We headed through the village towards the restaurant area, passed the touting owners of the bicycle rental shops, and settled on the restaurant which I usually patronize. We decided to go with the individual-main-course-plus-a-side-course ordering system. Though the food there was not particularly cheaper than the food back on the mainland, the serving was rather generous.

After lunch, we were actually quite fast in choosing our bikes. We decided on getting the older ones at a lower cost, since they didn't look too shabby anyway. We left the village on our bikes in no time. We didn't really have a destination in mind yet, so we picked our path randomly, stopping by once in a while to take pictures or hydrate ourselves.

Along the way, we passed by a swamp. Laibao and me actually spent like half an hour there trying to catch some small fish with a net we improvised using a small plastic bag and a twig. However, we did not catch anything at all =( . We gave up and moved along, passing by Mamam Beach and Nordin Beach. No special encounters such as snakes or wild boars, though we had to be particularly careful when there was any motor vehicles passing on our route. Eventually, we ended up back at the village at around half past 3.

Feeling it was still a little too early to leave, we made our way into the pandan garden and plantation. We found a creepy, abandoned beach further in. We spent abit of time there fooling around with the crabs and mudskippers, and looking around for weird objects. A very unusual find was a piece of deck from a broken kayak. There was still quite alot of time left after that, so we decided to head for the south of the island which we apparantly missed earlier on. I wanted to show Eddy the eagle's nest which Laibao and me saw on our previous visit. Just as we reached the deepest part of the plains near the eagle's nest, the weather took a sudden change for the worse. Me, having expended almost all my energy, had to keep Eddy and Laibao waiting one in a while as I was lagging behind. In the end, we reached the village, drenched.

We returned our bikes and Laibao suggested having dinner at Ubin as well, since there were lots of restaurants around. This time round, we tried the food at a different restaurant, which was rather good as well. We headed to the jetty after that, getting ready to board the boat back to the mainland.