An Island With No Malls

Last weekend's adventure took the three Oliners to the charming island of Ubin off of Singapore's northern coast. Though Ubin is part of the Republic of Singapore, Ubin is mostly undeveloped. With limited electricity and running water, it's a wonderful place to spend the day, biking on partially paved paths and exploring the nature reserves.

A drink stand on Ubin does its best to attract customers in Singlish.

After taking public transport all the way across Singapore to reach the jumping-off point, we hopped on a ferry across the channel.

The trusty boat that got us there.

Once there, we were immediately greeted by a street full of bike rental places. There were signs all over, some indicating $2 dirt-cheap bike rental, including my favorite sign:

IS IT REAL $2??

The answer, it turned out, was no -- it is not real $2. "There are no 2 dollar bikes," we were told, straightfaced by the shop owner standing in front of this sign. "I can give you this one for $6." Maybe I should've been more in the mood for bargaining, but less than $5 USD for a day of biking seemed pretty darned reasonable.
So, bikes in hand, we struck out. Let the photostory begin.

We biked through forest.

We explored mangrove.

See the fish? It's not in the water. It's a mudskipper.

a viewing tower in the mangrove.

the view back to Singapore from the tower. Note the drilling rig on the left.

There were a number of quarries on the island which had turned into very blue lakes over time!