Batam Trip! December 2012

Me and layting were both bored about being the only ones stuck in sg, so we impromptu-ly decided to head to batam for a short trip! 

bought a batam deal from here. The deal costs $65, and we had to pay additional taxes and tips of $29, so total $94 before any spending! I feel it was pretty worth it cos the hotel (golden view hotel) was good, and the package included lunch and dinner for the first day as well as a 1 hour massage!! 

and just a short rant about the Singapore tour operator traveller101. We followed the guidelines and emailed them our preferred dates, and the coordinator replied after 3 working days to say that the dates were fully booked! so it was getting kinda dangerous cos we were booking for a date that was a week later. After we replied with another set of dates, she said it was fully booked again! and it made no sense to me cos we opted for weekdays (like tues wed. so ulu!!). ok so nvm, layting asked her which dates are available and the agency didnt reply even until the friday right before the week we wanted to go. asked her to call us to settle the dates asap and she only called us on the monday of the following week. thank goodness she managed to help us book the friday tour otherwise we would have trouble finding another date =.= moral of the story: dont buy these deals unless you have a pretty flexible schedule and dont wait for email correspondence. phone is so much faster.

Ok end of rant.

So we started our trip by waking up at 5+ am *Yawns*

At the harbourfront ferry terminal! At first I thought the ferry was the sampan kind, similar to those in phuket/krabi so i was quite determined to ask for a life jacket to wear. but it was the huge & air conditioned kind hahahha

Leaving Singapore!!!

The ferry trip was about 45 minutes.

Arriving at sekupang ferry terminal! the immigration queue was SOO LONG cos two ferries came together. and there were only two counters =.=

Their ferry terminal!

Our coach bus! surprisingly our tour group was FILLED. and it was a friday sat tour. can u imagine the weekend tours???

I love the sea~

Our first stop was Chocolate house! 

Rows and rows of chocolate

Although im very much a chocolate lover, i did not buy any at all!! muahaha. partly cos the chocolates were quite pricey (one box of an unknown brand cost like $7 and there weren't many pieces inside). they also sold hersheys but it was more expensive than Singapore.

Lovely (Hot) Weather!

Our next stop was at the local temple. Which was pretty apt cos my results were scheduled to be out that afternoon. so i prayed really hard.

There were 3 chambers altogether. super huge!!

Serenity.

Then the tour guide brought us to this home-made kueh lapis place in their neighbourhood. No live demonstration of how it was made cos it was coincidentally lunchtime! and they only accept orders to be delivered later in the day. me and layting were speculating that maybe it is still factory made after all hahaha. but it didnt taste that great and was more pricey (~rp205,000) than the ones we bought subsequently (more details below!)

Free sampling!

They really do not have proper roads!

on the way out, i noticed some really cute signboards. their signboards are like 3D, made of some foamy thing (zoom in to see!) so cute.

Then we went to a ralph lauren factory outlet! no photos cos there was nothing much. polos were priced at around SGD80? anyway i wouldnt know whether it is really authentic or not cos the logo looked kinda weird to me.

then we finally headed to Golden Prawn 933 for lunch!!!

The place was already packed with other tourists by the time we reached.

The so-called 7 course seafood lunch included:

Fishball soup

some weird gong gong thing that tasted raw

Fried cuttlefish

Steamed veggie that was really hard and bitter

Fried prawns

Fried fish with tomato sauce

Chilli crab

I barely touched anything except the prawn and crab cos they tasted really weird. yes I ATE CHILLI CRAB. cos layting said it was nice. and its nubbad la, the meat was fresh, but i nearly died from the spicyness omg!!

After that we headed across the carpark to watch a traditional balinese cultural performance?

The performance included a traditional balinese dance with the horse, performers doing extraordinary tricks such as eating glass :O and burning charcoal :OOOO 

I DO NOT KNOW HOW THEY DO IT. so scary!!!!!

and we gave them tips of course, so poor things, performing in the hot sun :(

Then we headed to the go kart place. I thought there would be flying fox + some mini indonesia garden thing but there was nothing except the gokart and ANOTHER factory outlet :(( 

This whole area was just across the road from our hotel...

After another factory outlet + batik shop, we finally had our massage! at Indoprima Massage.

it was a massive massage session cos more than 3/4 of the group opted for massage. it was a traditional balinese massage, you will have to top up extra money if you want essential oils used instead of massage cream. not worth it IMO. 

The massage was okay. my masseur was pretty good when massaging my arms and back but no strength when it comes to the legs. plus her massage no structure one. LOL want to press where then press where left right side do different thing. 

Road side stalls!!! bought banana chips from a roadside stall. the stall owner was really friendly letting us sample the different crackers. but my heart was already set on the banana chips hahaha. TIP: DO NOT TRUST YOUR TOUR GUIDE when they say the roadside stalls will scam you. we were brought to a shop beside golden prawn to buy all the cracker stuffs. but it was more expensive than roadside ones. we managed to haggle to 3 packs for Rp50,000! and the same banana chips were selling for like >Rp25000 in the shop.

Finally we headed to Batam City Square for some shopping! its a really good place to shop IMO. the basement had 10 bucks shops like bugis street. and the clothes looked pretty decent but we didnt have time to really walk walk  :(

SAW THIS ayam penyet stall and we JUST had to try the real indonesian ayam penyet hahaha. so we bought it even though we were supposed to go back to the hotel for dinner

MEGA YUMZ IT WAS DAMN GOOD. the fried dougan was super crispy and fragrant. the chicken the best. it had the flavour of a certain spice (dont know the name), not just fried chicken. ahhhhh yummyyyy

After this the bus had to send the daytour people back to the ferry terminal, so we wasted like an hour which we could have spent on shopping T.T

Our hotel, as mentioned earlier, was Golden View Hotel. Service was really good, staff could speak English fluently and the hotel was pretty big! only downer was that the wifi was pretty shaky. sometimes good, sometimes no signal at all

Back at the hotel. THE ROOM WAS HUMONGOUS. just look at the space. i'm quite sure they can fit 6 beds in it and still have space to walk.

Our failed jumpshot.

Lovely xmas decor!

the hotel had a really big swimming pool, with loads of poolside chairs and HAMMOCKS! their hammocks can fit like 3 people. 

We had our dinner at the outside restaurant on the 2nd floor. My camera couldn't take photos cos it was too dark, but the whole setting was really romantic with candle lights and chill music. Great for couples :)

Dinner was also surprisingly yummy!!! i thought the hotel food would suck.

Grilled chicken chop? IT WAS DAMN NICE. its same as the kind that we had in krabi. super yumz

and fried rice! we got both to share hee smart right.

Happy layting

There was absolutely NOTHING around the hotel. plus it was really dangerous to go out at night (extremely dark roads, no proper walkway) so we just nuaed around in the hotel. Took photos with their xmas tree! their staff are all so friendly

Then we unloaded our haul. LOL I only bought 1 pack of corn and banana chips. the rest were layting's. she really buys damn alot hahaha.

Woke up the next day to this view!! thats the sea at the end.

Breakfast spread at the buffet was soso. nasi goreng, mee goreng, chicken etc. Asian food.

Omelette guy! but their omelette no cheese :(

Havent seen ang ku kueh in a super long time!!! didnt eat it though.

After breakfast we immd called a cab to go mega mall. since there was nothing around our hotel! the cab cost rp75,000 though. I guess our hotel is at a really ulu location!!! But our "cab" is like a private car. not really those meter cabs! but i dont mind la cos it felt safer and cleaner.

no traffic lights, no proper walkways!! dangerous D: i dont know how they drive really.

When we reached mega mall it wasnt opened yet =.= I don't suggest anyone to go mega mall cos there is absolutely ZERO shopping there :( so boring!

So we went to the ferry terminal to get our boarding passes first and omg so many people at our operator's counter! think batam fast is the most popular one eh. anyway thank goodness we didnt have to queue cos our tour operator already scheduled our ferry timings. 

Walked back to megamall to buy our Layers kueh lapis!!!

the most expensive one (Which i bought) was only Rp190,000. compared to the previous one. and this was homemade too! yup hahah. 

And my first time having A&W!!

The famed waffle!

I tried the chicken. SUPER OILY AND DEEPFRIED. its the kind that you will go "omg im gna have a sorethroat tmr so heaty" kind of fried chicken. good experience! 

 in the end we were left with Rp 99,000 (around SGD10) so we went to the supermarket to buy INDOMIE! hahahah

SO MANY KINDS. each pack was around 20cents! so we just bought many many

THESE are packets and packets of oil!!!! so scary!!! i think they really love deep fried food :X

I thought SG dont have ovaltine but i just found out there is T.T Yes we bought all of these for less than 10 bucks

After shopping at their supermarket, we went to J.co to bum. look at our stuffs:

Bought this coffee sachets! hope they're nice!! 

More indomie hahaha

We have 3 bucks left, so just nice we bought 3 J.co donuts. HAHA. each donut was only around 90 cents there!! so cheap!! hence alot of people were buying by the dozens D:

Then it was time for us to go :((

Didn't take any photos of the boarding gates, but the whole place was in CHAOS. there wasnt any screen to show which ferry was boarding, only personnel shouting the names of the ferry. plus it was pretty small and many people was confused.

Byebye batam :'(

2D1N was so short! but just right ba. a very relaxed trip with nothing to worry bout since we went with a tour! Would go back to batam in future on free-and-easy! havent been to many places like nagoya hill and i heard that there are really good massage places there!!! So awesome :)