Pulau Ubin Trip

On a Saturday, my friends and I arranged a trip to Pulau Ubin. No, we did not go there to have fun (well, somewhere along the line we did haha), but we went to do on-site observation for our final year project. We had to make a business analysis regarding the preservation and development of Pulau Ubin. I had never been to Pulau Ubin before, so I was kinda excited for the trip.

We met at Tanah Merah MRT and from there we took bus to Changi Village Ferry Terminal. The bus ride took quite long, around 20 mins plus I think. From Changi Village Ferry Terminal, we then went on a boat ride to Pulau Ubin. The boat ride fare was $3 one-way and it took just 10 minutes to reach Pulau Ubin. After halfway ride, my phone suddenly switched to Malaysian provider haha. IS PULAU UBIN A PART OF MALAYSIA? HAHAHA.

Upon arriving on Pulau Ubin, we rented a bike for each of us. There are a lot of bike rentals in the Ubin Town. The rental fee was $8 (if I'm not wrong) for whole day usage. The bike seemed rusty to me but I could still use it (haha thankfully I still remembered how to ride a bike).

Along the way, we found this beautiful granite quarry called Pekan Quarry

Tired of cycling under the blazing hot sun, we decided to stop by Sin Lam Huat 新南发 restaurant to get our lunch. Apparently, most restaurants in Pulau Ubin are zi char style ones (stalls that serve Chinese food). This kampong-style zi char really brought us back to the past era with its wooden wall and monochrome photos of old times.

Iced Lemon Tea - $1.50

Actually I wanted to get teh peng, but the uncle said only hot version was available. Gosh, is it too hard to make a normal teh and put some ice cubes in?

Omelette with Onions - $6 (small size)

The size was too small for $6, but it tasted good though. There were a lot of onion slices in the omelette.

Seafood Kai Lan with Minced Pork - $6 (small size)

I'm sure I read 'minced pork' in the menu, but turned out there was no single trace of minced pork in this dish! The seafood mentioned in the menu refers to shrimp only, there were no other types of seafood in this dish.

Lemon Chicken - $10 (small size)

I felt they could pour more lemon sauce since not all chicken slices were drenched with the sauce, but this was a tasty dish in general.

In total, we spent only $28 for 3 people including 3 drinks and 3 rice (a bowl of white rice costs 50 cents). An affordable lunch indeed, definitely cheaper as compared to the Singapore mainland!

After lunch, we went northward to get to Chek Jawa. The route here was more dirty and difficult since the road was not paved, rocky and muddy. We had to park our bikes at the bicycle parking site and walked a bit to reach Chek Jawa. Chek Jawa itself is the largest natural inter-tidal flat in northern Singapore and it is home to uncommon varieties of plant and animal. We walked along the boardwalk and the sea view was so pleasing to the eyes!

Sea you soon <3

The boardwalk went through the mangrove forest, so interesting! We also spotted some mud-skippers here haha.

Ugh my skin looks damn tanned here -_-

We found a viewing tower called Jejawi Tower and of course we climbed up to the top. This tower offers a panoramic view of Chek Jawa, the sea and the mainland Singapore from far.

"There's no wi-fi in the forest, but I promise you will have a better connection"

Finished exploring Chek Jawa and observed the current state of the environment there, we biked back to Ubin Town and return our bikes. Pulau Ubin is very big and at the end of the day we did not manage to explore the whole island since some parts were inaccessible to visitors. We took the boat back to Changi Village and said goodbye to this lush island. Overall, it was a super duper tiring yet fun trip. Pulau Ubin totally impressed me with its rustic charm and I felt like I was transported back in time - it is such a completely different world compare to the main island of Singapore. I will be back here, I promise!