Batam
I'm back! It was an interesting 2 days 1 night trip.
And much to my delight, the ferry ride was rather painless and I didn't suffer from any motion sickness! :)
So we arrived at Batam Saturday morning at 11ish.
Because of the long weekend, the hotel was packed to its max capacity. And it didn't help that the hotel staff missed our reservation. Apparently the reservation was keyed into the system but they missed that out whilst allocating rooms? Weird lah. As a result, we had to wait a good hour before we were handed our room keys. Zzzzzzz
The room was not really a room per say! Its more like a 2 bedroom apartment suite! Very cosy though I felt the room facilities weren't that great. The fridge wasn't working too well and the room light was a little cranky. But at $200 a night for that and split among 4 of us, we didn't really complain too much!
After we lazed around a bit, we trotted to the town centre for some walkaround and shopping. We booked a cab for 3 hours at $30.. The drive around the island was interesting. Every corner we turn, I see construction going on.. and most of the time, these construction were left half completed. You see buildings already erected with building structures, but you see no intention of further work. Heaps of rubbish and waste piling all over these structures and moss/algae were growing over there. Lack of funds to carry on with the building work, they say. And while the finished complexes are totally modern and nicely built, they juxtapose against the squatters that the Batam people live in... the living condition is terrible with bad sanitation and I wonder how loose planks of woods tied together as shelter will withstand the sporadic harsh weather..... And mosquitoes were buzzing everywhere in these squatters... I turned to baby and we both felt the same way - we are really blessed to be living in Singapore..
Our first stop was the supermarket to stock up some drinks for the night. Things were really cheap!The bottle of 1 litre mineral water was like 50cents and a bintang beer stubbie was like a dollar plus! Hee, so we happily bought 5 bottles of water and 12 bottles of beer.. With beer costing less than coke, who could resist? ;)
(And the beer didn't taste too bad!)
Ooh and for dinner, we hooked up with the rest and we went to this kelong seafood restaurant for yummy live seafood!!! Goodness me, the amount of seafood we ate was unbelievable! The 10 of us ate lots of crabs, prawns, fish, gong gong and scallops, all washed down with coconut drink and beer! Supper yummilicious! And the bill? 18 dollars per person!
I was a little wary about the hygience of the food and was praying that my stomach wouldn't play up.. and it didn't! :) Haha, batam seafood makan trip again, anyone?
The night fell beautifully and the gang decided to play mahjong. What was intended to be a few rounds of MJ turned up to be a semi all-nighter till 4am... Haha, nah I didn't play. I was watching people play whilst flipping the TV channels (we get singapore channels over at batam too..)
Because of MJ, Sunday's golf plans didn't materialise. Everyone was so tired that we didn't crawl out of bed till 10ish. We made it just in time before the breakfast buffet ended and got our tum tums all satisfied before we checked out and made our way back home.
It was a lovely break and I totally enjoyed myself, though I think it would have been better if my golf fanatic of a baby could manage to go swinging at the golf course!
We'll be back there again, I'm sure! :)
And much to my delight, the ferry ride was rather painless and I didn't suffer from any motion sickness! :)
So we arrived at Batam Saturday morning at 11ish.
Because of the long weekend, the hotel was packed to its max capacity. And it didn't help that the hotel staff missed our reservation. Apparently the reservation was keyed into the system but they missed that out whilst allocating rooms? Weird lah. As a result, we had to wait a good hour before we were handed our room keys. Zzzzzzz
The room was not really a room per say! Its more like a 2 bedroom apartment suite! Very cosy though I felt the room facilities weren't that great. The fridge wasn't working too well and the room light was a little cranky. But at $200 a night for that and split among 4 of us, we didn't really complain too much!
After we lazed around a bit, we trotted to the town centre for some walkaround and shopping. We booked a cab for 3 hours at $30.. The drive around the island was interesting. Every corner we turn, I see construction going on.. and most of the time, these construction were left half completed. You see buildings already erected with building structures, but you see no intention of further work. Heaps of rubbish and waste piling all over these structures and moss/algae were growing over there. Lack of funds to carry on with the building work, they say. And while the finished complexes are totally modern and nicely built, they juxtapose against the squatters that the Batam people live in... the living condition is terrible with bad sanitation and I wonder how loose planks of woods tied together as shelter will withstand the sporadic harsh weather..... And mosquitoes were buzzing everywhere in these squatters... I turned to baby and we both felt the same way - we are really blessed to be living in Singapore..
Our first stop was the supermarket to stock up some drinks for the night. Things were really cheap!The bottle of 1 litre mineral water was like 50cents and a bintang beer stubbie was like a dollar plus! Hee, so we happily bought 5 bottles of water and 12 bottles of beer.. With beer costing less than coke, who could resist? ;)
(And the beer didn't taste too bad!)
Ooh and for dinner, we hooked up with the rest and we went to this kelong seafood restaurant for yummy live seafood!!! Goodness me, the amount of seafood we ate was unbelievable! The 10 of us ate lots of crabs, prawns, fish, gong gong and scallops, all washed down with coconut drink and beer! Supper yummilicious! And the bill? 18 dollars per person!
I was a little wary about the hygience of the food and was praying that my stomach wouldn't play up.. and it didn't! :) Haha, batam seafood makan trip again, anyone?
The night fell beautifully and the gang decided to play mahjong. What was intended to be a few rounds of MJ turned up to be a semi all-nighter till 4am... Haha, nah I didn't play. I was watching people play whilst flipping the TV channels (we get singapore channels over at batam too..)
Because of MJ, Sunday's golf plans didn't materialise. Everyone was so tired that we didn't crawl out of bed till 10ish. We made it just in time before the breakfast buffet ended and got our tum tums all satisfied before we checked out and made our way back home.
It was a lovely break and I totally enjoyed myself, though I think it would have been better if my golf fanatic of a baby could manage to go swinging at the golf course!
We'll be back there again, I'm sure! :)
posted by Shazza at Sunday, May 01, 2005
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