I know I said I'd blog about this and a new year has come and I haven't. So here goes =P
It's pretty strange that I've been to quite a number of places but I've never even stepped into Indonesia, one of Singapore's closest neighbours. Until Christmas of '08 that is. My boyfriend and I went there for 2 days as part of a Christmas getaway and a short trip to celebrate my 21st birthday.
We left at 7.20am on the 25th (because he woke up late!) and headed for Harbourfront Centre. Got our tickets settled after realising that his year of birth had been altered to 2008 (I was apparently travelling with an infant *lol*) and that my name was wrong and so was my passport number. Since we still had time to spare, we went for breakfast at this Ya Kun-like place at Harbourfront Centre with really bad service *cough* Wang Cafe*cough*. In the last hour or so before we left for Batam, we were yelled at by the staff for not collecting our drinks. Anyway, we finally left for the ferry terminal and waited to board the ferry, sitting beside a Sikh family who later turned out to be our travelling companions. The 2 of us on the ferry while on the way to Batam!
After close to an hour, we finally docked at Batam Centre, got off and located the tour guide. First stop? The Polo Ralph Lauren store... which is actually pointless to the 2 of us; people who do not have the purchasing power to spend S$50 on a polo t-shirt, even if it were an original and even if it were S$20 cheaper than back in Singapore. We were then brought to one of the largest Buddhist temples in SE Asia. The Maha Vihara Buta Mantreya (there's a possible typo somewhere.. =s) temple.
Except it doesn't look anything like a temple, architecturally. If it weren't for the numerous statues, the smell of incense sticks burning and the presence of devotees, there was no way I'd peg it for a temple. In fact, the toilet looked more temple-like (with those traditional Chinese roofs) than the actual temple itself!
After the temple visit, it was time for LUNCH. The itininery said that we were going to a seafood restaurant for fresh seafood (which got me pretty excited) until I saw the REAL venue. A coffee-shop. A fly-infested coffeeshop. And it was definitely not by the sea-side. It was also most definitely not a seafood restaurant. After the initial disappointment gave way, the food was pretty enjoyable. In fact, the chicken was well-seasoned and cooked (it was VERY popular with the kids) and the prawns was pretty good (though not too fresh). Otherwise, the food was actually simple fare and wouldn't cost the tour agency much (what were we expecting from a FREE city tour? *rolls eyes*).
Our post-lunch initial plan of buying keropok and other local snacks fell through when we realised the mall the store was located within wasn't open till later in the day as it was Christmas, so we ended up spending 2 hours at Nongsa Hill Shopping Mall. After walking close to 2 rounds around the mall, I concluded that there was no shopping to be done clothes-wise for me in Batam whereas my boyfriend and I had an interesting encounter at the local departmental store while buying dress pants for him(2 for almost $40 I think). We were waiting in line at the cashier's (the only one that was operating while the other 3-5 were all CLOSED), holding onto 2 pairs of pants until he realised that everyone else wasn't holding onto anything but a white slip of paper. Curious, he asked an Indonesian Chinese woman in front if we needed it too and it turns out that we did! So she nicely informed the staff at the cashier about it, the staff took the pants from us and ran off to write out the invoice, only for them to spend the next 10 minutes trying to calculate the final sum *faints*, which they eventually figured out but didn't get to write down because we figured it'd be the next day by the time they actually wrote it down. While we got to hold onto that white slip of paper, a pink one was attached to our articles and placed in one of MANY cubbies at the cashier's. When we finally got to the front of the line, the cashier took our white slip of paper and proceed to hunt our article down, going from cubby to cubby in an attempt to match the 2 pieces of invoices. Only upon successfully matching the white and pink invoices would we then proceed to make payment. That experience took us 1 hour! Just to pay for 2 pairs of pants.
With the remaining 40 minutes, we went for A&W! A&W!!!!! Why did you leave Singapore!?!?! Ahh.. the fantastic waffle with a generous serving of ice cream. We spent 32700IDR on food!
After leaving Nongsa Hill Shopping Mall, we went to Batam City Square, which was frighteningly crowded because (I think) the local celebrities were holding some sort of event there. I felt that mall was rather messy and rowdy, feeling like a complicated jumble of Sim Lim Square and Far East Plaza. The 2nd mall solidified my earlier conclusion that I wasn't going to do any shopping in Batam while my boyfriend spent some S$5-6 getting his hair cut, washed and blowed.
The next destination was Win's Spa, supposedly one of the better spas around in Batam. The lady's corner (with the single rose and MUCH nicer box to place our trinkets within).
For S$50 per person, you'd be treated to a 2.5hr Indonesian massage, sauna, body scrub, body mask and milk bath. And if you're female, at the end of it all, you get this really interesting treatment where they literally sit u down on a stool with a hole in the middle, where they'd then place a small container of burning *whatever it is* under your butt. I AM NOT KIDDING. The whole time, I was too afraid to adjust my butt for fear of giving my butt 2nd to 3rd degree burns. It wasn't steam, it was PURE HEAT. And then ladies would also be given a tummy firming pill (lol).
By the time the spa session ended, it was almost 6.30pm Batam time and naturally we ended up going for dinner. Nasi Padang!
You'd walk into the eatery and the staff there would serve you a plate of EVERY available dish. From there, you would just eat whatever you felt like eating and they'd charge whatever you ate. So out of the 15 plates you see there, we finished 6 plates of dishes. It was GOOD. While there, we also had FRESHLY squeezed starfruit juice and mango juice. There was no lying as to the authenticity of the fruit juice, especially when the pulp and fibre of the fruit was still in the juice. So for 6 dishes, as much rice as you could possibly want, 2 bottles of mineral water and 2 glasses of juice, we paid for a little under S$10. Worth every cent if you asked me.
Since we still wanted (rather badly) to buy keropok and other snacks, we made the tour guide drive us to the mall which we missed earlier on in the day and ended up getting a HUGE bag full of chips and keropok. I love belinjau crackers. From then on, it was another 20-40 min car ride to the resort before we finally checked in, got our keys and entered the room close to 9pm (Batam time!)Comfy (inviting) bed!
I fell in love with this chair
After showering and changing, we watched a bit of Discovery Channel and fell asleep. The next morning, we got up, showered, changed and went down for breakfast, and were not disappointed. We were greeted by a sumptuous feast which beat ANY hotel I stayed at while in Yunnan. After seeing that the weather wasn't being kind on our initial plans to try the water sports there, exacerbated by the general aches my muscles were still suffering from, we gave water sports a miss (never expend all your energy running about on the first day before going for water sports!) and opted to explore the compound of the resort. The hiccup of the trip finally occurred on the 2nd day, just as we were to leave the resort and make our way to Batam Centre to collect our ferry tickets/boarding passes. The Batam travel agency was supposed to send a driver down to pick us up and drive us to the terminal at noon(Sg time). With that in mind, after exploring the premises of the resort, we went back to our room and watched the Discovery Channel before checking out at 11.40am(Sg time), afterwhich we utilised our welcome drinks coupons to redeem 2 glasses of orange syrup water while waiting for the driver. Before we knew it, noon(Sg time) came and gone and there was no sight of the driver. My boyfriend went to the front desk and spent the next 15mins trying to get hold of the travel agency, only to be told at 12.15pm(Sg time) that the driver was already on his way and would arrive in 10 minutes. 10 minutes came and went, still no driver, and still we waited. And when it was 12.45pm(Sg time), we agreed that there was no knowing whether the driver would ever arrive, we decided to have the resort's front desk call for a cab to take us to Batam Centre, incurring an additional expense of S$20. With that, we were finally on our way to Batam Centre, reaching there only closer to 2pm(Sg time). Since the stated ferry timing on the itininery (4.30pm Batam time) would mean we'd only reach Singapore close to 7pm, we really wanted to get on an earlier ferry out (why is part of the reason why we decided to hire a cab to take us to the ferry terminal) as the following day was still a working day for my boyfriend. And because we didn't wait for the driver, we were able to get ourselves boarding passes for the 3.30pm (Batam time) ferry back to Singapore, with an additional 2 hours left to eat and walk around Megamall, the largest mall in Batam which is connected to Batam Centre by an overhead bridge. Within those 2 hours, we managed to have a 2nd round at A&W! =D Too bad they didn't have any Coney dogs, would have loved to have one.
It was only till we were in Singapore waters (though my phone kept getting the Indonesian telecom network whereas my boyfriend was able to get on and stay on Singtel!) that we realised the Singapore travel agent we booked our trip with (a friend of my boyfriend's) was frantically looking for us. And so it turns out that the driver did turn up after we left, how late he was I really don't want to know, and so he (boyfriend) related how they left us in limbo, sitting in the hotel's lobby for close to an hour waiting for a driver that wasn't going to be on time.
Despite the hiccup due to the driver fiasco during the trip, it was still a good one; with fantastic food, nice snacks (I love Berlingau crackers, lol), a 2.5h spa session and of course, fantastic company. Too bad we didn't get to try the water sports though.
I'm a 3rd year student in what is probably the largest autonomous university in Singapore majoring in a Science-related subject (well it sorta IS SCIENCE). I'm known to be introverted, sarcastic (at times), funny when I rant (which isn't a good thing lol) and somewhat of a loner. I miss LA and would move there in a heartbeat :(
Comfy (inviting) bed!
