Arrival in Bintan

We arrived in Bintan by ferry and started to look for a place to stay. This proved to be a little harder then anticipated due to the fact that this local man named Adam insisted on showing us places to stay. His suggestions ended up being less then desirable and we made our way to a hotel called Lesmina. Much to our surprise after we unpacked Adam was still waiting for us at the reception. It was not in till after dinner we were able to separate ourselves and walk around the town by ourselves for the first time. As we were walking around at night we saw some lights in the distance. They looked to be lights for some sort of court. As we approached we found out that it was a concrete basketball court. When we walked into the "stadium" there was already a game going on. Naturally we sat down to watch.
When the game ended we decided to join in on the action. We went down to the far end of the court and joined a shoot around. After a couple of minutes Tom, Rooney, Jesus, and I were challenged to a game of four on four. We accepted and made our way down to the opposite end. We felt very confident due to our considerable height advantage (Team America all being over 6 feet and team Indonesia all being around five six or so).
Team Indonesia started with the ball and after a short possession through up an air ball. We got the rebound and gave the ball to Tom at the top of the key. Right as Tom was going to pass the ball in the lights on the court turned off. It was not meant to be (At least not that night). We were told that we could resume the game the next day. The local kids gave us two different starting times for the game, 6 am or 8 pm. We took a team vote and somehow decided that the 8 pm start would better suit our teams needs. We left the court a little disappointed due to the lights turning off but excited for tomorrows game. It was now time to search for some cold water (though we did not actually get to play we still broke a sweat due to the heat). It turned out that cold water was a hard thing to find. The only place that we could find cold water happened to be in a local pool hall.
We decided that it would be rude if we just bought some water and didn't play. It shortly became apparent that Merrill was by far the best female in the pool hall ( she may have been the only one). After a couple of games we decided to go back to the hotel.
As the group was preparing for bed we gave the 6 am basketball another thought. Jesus decided it might be worth it. Surprisingly he convinced us that it was a good idea. The plan was to wake up around 5 thirty and meet our new friends at 6 to play.
However when the alarm went off in our room it was quickly turned off. It is unclear who turned it off at five thirty but the next thing we knew it was 10:30. To make matters worse it had started to rain. Undeterred we put on our raincoats and ventured outside. We figured it would be a good idea to look into getting a basketball for the afternoon. The first shop was selling them four around 14 us dollars which we deemed a little expensive. That was in till the next shop over told us that they were 80 dollars. Needless to say we decided that it was a better option to see if we could just borrow one. The rain had started to let up so we made our way over to the court to get used to it and warm up.
When we arrived there were already kids shooting around. We joined in. Soon after we were once again challenged by a group of local kids. This time the lights going out would not be an issue. Our confidence was still high even though rain is the great equalizer and Rooney and I did not have shoes on. As we had hoped and predicted the height advantage more then made up for the rain and bare feet. Our foursome was victorious. We played 2 or three games and then split up our team to get some five on five games going. These were much competitive. However playing with no shoes took its toll and Rooney and I sat out a couple of games towards the end of the afternoon.
Instead of playing more that night we decided to go shower then meet up with the kids we played basketball with for dinner. It was unbelievable helpful to have people who speak Indonesian at our table when it came to ordering food. We placed our fate in their hands and just told them to order us things that they liked. Our faith payed off big time as we got a variety of noodles, rice and soups. Which included squid, oysters, shrimp, chicken, and pork.
After dinner our friends took us to their local pool hall. They did not tell us however how good they were. While we had the upper hand on the basketball court we defiantly did not have the upper hand on the pool table. A couple of them in particular were unbelievable. We played for a couple of hours and I lost a game in which i had bet 20 push ups. While I was the first to loose a game with push ups on the line the next couple days would show I defiantly would not be the last.


- WBM