Calypso and The Pub

22 December 2008, 7.30pm

Our second night on idle island and by this night, it was no longer a night of doing nothing. We had in our plan to chill out at Calypso bar - a place we'd seen from someone's else travel blog, and with great chill-out attributes as recommended by the hotel, "a Carribean-style bar situated in the middle of the sea, with an influence of Rastafarian playing all kinds of reggae and calypso songs." (http://www.nirwanagardens.com/)

And so with a great chill-out night in mind, we set off again to Kelong, where Calypso is located. It was no doubt another cold, windy night. It was as dark as it could be... led by only the Neon signs from Calypso bar. We walked on the wooden planks... like from a kelong to a kelong.

We had some drinks and a plate of chicken and peanuts as finger food (supper following the hot and spicy tom yam cup noodles we had in our room to warm ourselves after the dip). It was a nice chill-out place but a little too quiet with only 2 tables of customers a bartender with barely anything to do. All was nice but lacking in the live band which could have livened up the place much more (but our guess: the band don't play on weekday ya?) By then, we were too tired to complain.

Following the disappointment the night before, we were happy we finally got to sing - KTV time in Bintan. KTV sounds fun anytime anywhere... but not here at Nirwana as we discovered.

There was a live band in The Pub by the time we got into the KTV room. It was loud and noisy as the private room didn't seem to be sound-proof at all. We could hear the live band outside and can even sing along with them. It was a major disappointment for us as:

1. the KTV system didn't work. We spent half of the time figuring out the system than singing away.

2. the songs available were not from our era... maybe from our dad's era. We ended up picking any, and I mean any song that we seemed to know or have heard of before. But the best part was, we sang all the xmas songs available on the list!

3. when we figured out the system, we realised it was just slow and not that we didn't know how to use it. And it was very slow.

We had to order four mocktails as minimum order for usage of private room but we were not very happy customers.

By the time we were done with the KTV after 1.5hr, we were grumpy and sleepy girls who just wanted to head back to the room for some sleep. At least, I was.