Position 00:28.34N 104:26.49E

It was fantastic to finally see land again and what a pretty site !

This is Benan Island where we dropped anchor just across from the main village between two fishing huts on stilts in the water.

The pilot book made promises of a restaurant ashore so we dropped the dinghy in the water and went to investigate with Carmen & Jaime following behind us in their dinghy.

It was very interesting with all the houses built on stilts over the water, there were lots of people around, especially children and we soon became the local celebrities !

When Mark mentioned ‘restaurant’ we were ushered down a rickety wooden platform over the water to a couple of benches where we were surrounded by lots of smiling people and asked if we would like a drink.

Sign language was the order of the day and Mark did his worst and ordered the drinks, there were no cans or bottles to choose from.

A milky drink was served in plastic beakers with local ice, it didn’t taste too bad but had lots of milk solid lumps in it making it impossible to drink through the straw and leaving us wondering what the lumps actually were !

Since this wasn’t going down too well they bought out an alternative that looked optimistically like orange, but tasted like sweetened corn on the cob juice.

We were also offered lots of different snacks which were quite tasty, a bit like prawn crackers and sweet fried pastry, we couldn’t refuse such enthusiastic hospitality.

But we needed to escape !

Mark saved the day (well he did get us into this mess) as we were introduced to the local school teacher who spoke a few words of English and Mark asked if he would like to show us their village – bingo – we were whisked away for a grand tour !

Word soon got around and we were accompanied by the town dignitaries and all of the children !

We called in at the supermarket which sold everything from drive belts (hanging up) to dried chillies (in the box below).

The fruit & veg counter was a bit limited !

The village had a good school on firm ground and two mosques which called people to prayer lots of times a day.

We passed some ladies preparing and cooking seafood over an open fire – which looked a bit like conch and we passed men building new concrete block houses precariously balanced on wooden stilts. There were several fishing boats coming and going and one man using hand tools to build his new wooden boat.

Our entourage followed us back to our dinghy where we shook hands and waved goodbye as we left – what an amazing welcome to the Riau Islands.

Next stop was Bionic where we shared a couple of bottles of well chilled Spanish Cava with Jaime and Carmen to celebrate crossing the equator earlier in the day.

We held back on the dinner reservation in the local restaurant and instead opened a can of Marks and Spencer steak in gravy which we ate with Mashed potato and cabbage.

I know, I know – the menus just keep getting better !