Golfing Where Jungle Meets Sea: Bintan Island

Indonesia's Ria Bintan Golf Club belongs in the category of golf courses that leave you stopping mid-hole to admire the view.

Designed by Gary Player on Bintan Island, an hour’s ferry ride east of Singapore, the Ocean Course winds down through dense forest to signature holes 7, 8 and 9, which feature greens and tee boxes framed by granite boulders, quiet coves, and beaches worthy of a postcard.

Players are required to take a well-informed, yellow uniformed caddy who rides holding onto a bar across the back of the mandatory golf cart to help pick clubs, mark balls on the green and aim putts.

Monkeys wander the fairways and snake warning signs discourage looking for errant shots in the out-of-bounds areas. Altogether, a novel experience.

And if your scorecard survives the experience with a few respectable numbers on it, that's just a bonus.