We arrived in Bintan after a great ferry boat ride from Singapore yesterday morning. The weather was perfect, and we quickly organized a really nice taxi ride to Trikora Beach. We stopped for breakfast at the Madu Tiga beach and resort for breakfast. The food and service were wonderful. The staff were friendly and very, very welcoming. Everything looked like we were in for a very pleasant day trip. Boy were we wrong!!! By 11:00am, the tide started to go out, and within 90 minutes had receded by more than 75 meters and revealed a beach choked with plastic, garbage and refuse. In my 40+ years of international travel, I have never seen such a shocking abuse of nature. For as far as the eye could see, along a strip of white , tropical sand beach coast, was hundreds of meters of garbage and abandoned beach resorts. The local population and the local government did not seem to care that what should be a dream spot of Instagram photo locations had been reduced to oil soaked sand carpeted by tens of thousands of empty plastic bottles, shopping bags stuck to tree limbs, beer bottles, human waste and foam containers. A true ecological disaster. Why is this not being addressed? Why would the local population, who live from tourism, not clean this beach? Adding to all of this was mother nature. Low tied starts before noon and only returns to high tide in early evening. This means that swimming during the day is near impossible, as there is no water deeper than the top of your foot for at least 200+ meters from the beach front. Trikora beach, Bintan Island, Indonesia, is an international shame. If you come here, do so with cleaning up in mind. Bring tens of thousand of bags to take away all of the garbage that covers every square millimeter of what should be a world class destination.

Trikora is a beautiful, peaceful beach, but be careful when swimming there. The waves can be big due to strong winds and also riptides towards the south end of the beach. There have been a number of drowning incidents involving tourists there over the last few year and unfortunately I witnessed one whilst there.