I was woken up at 7am on Saturday by my calender alarm, which read "Batam trip with MX5 club"... By then, i was feeling much better, so i woke K up and told him i wanted to go to Batam if it was still possible. K jumped up and (almost) immediately called up the tour agency to make arrangements. Within the next 30 mins, we packed our stuff, had some bread, and was off to the train station heading toward HarbourFront ferry terminal.. = )
Poor Gary had to run around like a headless chicken to settle all the ticketing and admin stuff due to our last minute decision. I felt so bad (yet happy at the same time) when we finally met up with the group at HarbourFront center. But everything was not smooth sailing though.. We run into some problems at the check in area, cause our passport numbers on the ferry ticket and passport did not tally. This whole different passport numbers for new passports thingie is really pissing me off. I had the same problem when we arrived in New Zealand! After all the hassle, the 11 of us finally reached Batam island at 920am. We actually did not lose any time at all, cause Batam is one hour behind Singapore, so we left Singapore at 920am, and reached Batam at 920am. = )
We had signed up for a tour package, which included a city tour, so for the first day, we went on the city tour. Our tour guide was an Indonesian Chinese guy who can really talk cok. We spent the entire day shopping, going for massages and pedicures, and eating seafood. I bought myself a loose blouse and stretch jeans pants, did my first pedicure with nail art, and had curly fries at A&W, which is totally extinct now in Singapore! I was SOO craving for their coney dog and waffles, but the cashier told us they were both out of stock. What bad luck!
The tour guide also brought us to some touristy places, like this shop that supposedly sells genuine Polo Ralph Lauren clothes at much cheaper prices compared to Singapore, their local Chinatown, two dry local products shop, the biggest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia (which was pretty crappy), and the home of this lady who bakes kueh lapis (we bought one from her). We also had seafood lunch at this "933 Golden Prawn Batam" restaurant. Food was average, nothing fantastic. I couldn't really eat much seafood so i ended up eating mostly fish and vegetables with plain rice. Our tour ended in the early evening, so we had dinner by ourselves. One of the guys had a colleague to drive us around, so we went for dinner at this seafood hawker center, where they had this Chinese lady in skimpy clothes performing live songs on stage. We only got to check in and "enjoy" our bedrooms at 11pm that day.
The row of cottages in which we stayed in for 1 night
Poor Gary had to run around like a headless chicken to settle all the ticketing and admin stuff due to our last minute decision. I felt so bad (yet happy at the same time) when we finally met up with the group at HarbourFront center. But everything was not smooth sailing though.. We run into some problems at the check in area, cause our passport numbers on the ferry ticket and passport did not tally. This whole different passport numbers for new passports thingie is really pissing me off. I had the same problem when we arrived in New Zealand! After all the hassle, the 11 of us finally reached Batam island at 920am. We actually did not lose any time at all, cause Batam is one hour behind Singapore, so we left Singapore at 920am, and reached Batam at 920am. = )
We had signed up for a tour package, which included a city tour, so for the first day, we went on the city tour. Our tour guide was an Indonesian Chinese guy who can really talk cok. We spent the entire day shopping, going for massages and pedicures, and eating seafood. I bought myself a loose blouse and stretch jeans pants, did my first pedicure with nail art, and had curly fries at A&W, which is totally extinct now in Singapore! I was SOO craving for their coney dog and waffles, but the cashier told us they were both out of stock. What bad luck!
The tour guide also brought us to some touristy places, like this shop that supposedly sells genuine Polo Ralph Lauren clothes at much cheaper prices compared to Singapore, their local Chinatown, two dry local products shop, the biggest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia (which was pretty crappy), and the home of this lady who bakes kueh lapis (we bought one from her). We also had seafood lunch at this "933 Golden Prawn Batam" restaurant. Food was average, nothing fantastic. I couldn't really eat much seafood so i ended up eating mostly fish and vegetables with plain rice. Our tour ended in the early evening, so we had dinner by ourselves. One of the guys had a colleague to drive us around, so we went for dinner at this seafood hawker center, where they had this Chinese lady in skimpy clothes performing live songs on stage. We only got to check in and "enjoy" our bedrooms at 11pm that day.
View from our beachside cottage @ KTM resort
The row of cottages in which we stayed in for 1 night
Home made kueh lapis
Our seafood lunch location
My first pedicure with nail art.. = )
On our second day, we went for buffet breakfast at the resort. The buffet spread was lousy. Just normal omelete, toast, fruits, fried bee hoon and fried rice. But i enjoyed the sea view and the breeze while having breakfast.. It was so nice and relaxing.. After breakfast, we went for the massage which was included in the package. K and the rest had a really foamy jacuzzi bath before the massage while i watched. I also had to go for the shorter 30 min head and shoulder massage while the rest had their 60 min full body massage. But it was still nice. The massage was inside small little non-air conditioned huts that faced the sea, so i was propped onto a wooden chair facing the sea with my legs hanging out above the water, while the masseur worked her magic on my head, shoulders and hands.
The most foamy jacuzzi bath i have ever seen!
After the massage, with not much left to do in Batam, we decided to take an earlier ferry back to Singapore. We departed at 12pm, and reached Singapore in time for a quick lunch. By the time we arrived home, it was already 4pm. K and I took a short nap, before we headed out again to Aunt Cynthia's place for sukiyaki dinner.. We spent the evening relating my food poisoning story, our spontaneous Batam trip, and showing the relatives photos of our NZ holiday over home made kueh lapis from Batam.. = )
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