At 20:50 on December 2nd. We headed for Singapore on Singapole airline
flight SQ0011. The airplane arrived at Singapore's Changi Airport at 3
o'clock in the morning. Changi is a large airport, open 24 hours and separated
into three terminals. But the skytrain that connects three terminals finishes
its operation at 2:30 and starts from 5 o'clock. Of course we could walk
to the other terminal but anyway there was a 6-hour layover so that we
were not in a hurry. There were free snooze lounges which had reclining
chairs with head and foot rests in the airport but they were packed. We
occupied two couches and caught some z's. Silkair airline flight SQ5274 departed at 9:25 in the morning on December 3rd. The airplane was small and near capacity. It was a three and a half hour flight to Manado, a northern town of Sulawesi. As Manado airport was crowded, it took quite a long time to get a visa on arrival and go through the disembarkation procedures.
A taxi was waiting for us and took us to Manado port. We sailed to Bunaken
Island with the hotel owner, Raff and Reiko. The port was also crowded
and it took some time to depart.
Because Cha Cha Nature Resort, the hotel we stayed at is located in Bunaken
National Park and it is not allowed to build landing piers, all passengers
have to wade in shallow water to land. The water came over the knee and
wetted our rolled up trousers.The hotel building is located on the slope of the island. The main building is the nearest to the coast and has a terrace from which we can get a beautiful view of the sea, islands and sunset enjoying afternoon tea.
Chico the great dane (left)
A view from hotel's terrace(right). The hotel's boat is on the far right.
The hotel has aftenoon tea from 4:30 to 5:30. Different home-cooked sweets
are offered everyday.Upper left: Apang Bakar(sponge cake)
Upper middle: Pisan Goren（fried banana）
Upper right: Apang Goe（steamed bread）
Lower left: "Cake"
Lower middle: Betawi Pulo(Coco flavored salty-sweet rice cake)
Lower right: Look like soft caramel cookie
We stayed in cottage8 which we had to climb up a steep ramp to reach and it made us a bit short of breath to climb up there from the main building without stopping. We waited for bats at our cottage terrace and saw a middle size fruit bat flying around the hotel property but it didn't stop to hang.
It was a hard day and we decided to go to bed soon after dinner.