Batam Travelogue (Part I)

Last December (2013), Castalos, CQ, Eugene, Jessica and I decided to head to Batam for a short vacation. I guess it is becoming our tradition to end off each year with an overseas trip. Due to overwhelming amount of school work, we had kind of plan this trip in a rush. Nevertheless, the whole trip was really enjoyable, because of these lovely people traveling with me.

Left to Right: Joan, CQ and Jessica

Boarding the ferry from Harbourfront ferry terminal

Below - Left to Right: Joan, Castalos and Jessica. Above - Left to Right: CQ and Eugene
And off we go!

Maybe Castalos was really camera shy, otherwise, he is just really proud to be a Singaporean. ;) He was lacking of sleep that day, and he was in deep slumber mode throughout the whole one hour ride in the ferry.  He didn't respond to any of our disturbances when he was napping.

Shoreline of Singapore

We reached Batam Waterfront ferry terminal at noon. Then, we took a free shuttle bus to Harris Waterfront Resort. It was a less-than-5-minutes bus ride to the resort. Even though the bus ride to the resort was relatively short, the roads were pretty rough and it is not advisable to walk to the resort with your belongings. When we got off the shuttle bus, we were welcomed with scented warm towels and welcome drinks. 

It turned out that Jessica and I, each had reserved two connected rooms at Harris Waterfront Resort. We had miscommunications, only to realize the problem until the day of our trip. The reception at Harris Resort was really kind to waive off the rooms that we have double reserved, at no charges.

While we were waiting for the administration process to waive off the rooms that we have double reserved, we decided to explore around.

Trendy wing of Harris Waterfront Resort at Batam

We were really famished, and decided to settle down at a Korean-Japanese restaurant located beside the trendy wing of Harris. The restaurant featured many Japanese art and poetry as wall decorations. Surprisingly, the restaurant are run by Indonesians and Chinese nationalities. 

In my opinion, it is not recommendable to dine here if you are looking for deliciously, cheap food. The price of the set meals in the restaurant is as comparable to a typical Japanese set meals in a Singapore restaurant. The soup of my udon is too salty for my liking. :(

We went back to the reception to take our hotel room key cards after our lunch. Our initial plan was to rest and go down for a swim in the pool. However, the weather was quite unpredictable that day. Dark clouds shrouded over the resort at 2pm, and it started to rain heavily, with occasional lightnings. 

It was a perfect weather for Castalos to fall asleep. The four of us decided to leave Castalos to rest in the room for awhile. Jessica and I decided to try Indonesian foot reflexology for an hour, while CQ and Eugene explore around the place at Harris Resort. 

The foot reflexology session was really great, although it is quite painful at times. My foot masseur does not speak much English. Nonetheless, he still tried his best to convey his message or initiate a conversation with me. He has great knowledge on how our foot nerve endings can affect a person's health. He told me that I have headache and sleepless nights often, whenever he applied pressure on a specific area of my foot. That was really spot on.

After the foot reflexology session, the four of us met up again. It was still drizzling. We really wanted to go for a swim, but we were denied access to the pool by the security guard, due to safety reasons. Our moods were dampened. We decided that there was nothing else that we can do, we shall wake Castalos up to go for an early seafood dinner.

In the early evening, the five of us rented a taxi from the resort, and headed down to Golden Prawn Seafood Restaurant. The ride from the resort to the seafood restaurant was approximately half an hour. The weather was getting really rainy, dark and scary, and we were surprised that despite the roads are not properly lit up, the taxi driver knows his way to our destination very well.

Golden Prawn Seafood Restaurant works in a pretty flexible manner. We are allowed to pick the seafood that we wanted from their fresh water, and request to cook in the style that we would like to eat. We ordered other dishes, along with crayfish, prawns and two crabs - one to be cooked with salted egg, and another to be cooked with chilli.

Dinner at Golden Prawn Seafood Restaurant

However, the waiter at the restaurant kind of messed up our order for the crabs. Instead of having one crab cooked with salted egg, and the other cooked with chilli, we had two crabs being cooked with salted egg. We demanded for a change in the dish thrice. After half an hour, the waiter came over with a dish of chilli crab, and told us it is on the house.

Crabs, cooked with salted eggs

Free crab, cooked with chilli

We were really full from the scrumptious seafood dinner. I must say, it was relatively cheap to eat seafood in Indonesia. We decided to walk around, and shop for Indonesian snacks, before we squeeze into the taxi and head back to our resort. I noticed that the amount of bags that are 'inspired' by luxury brands are plentiful, and they look real, if you know what I mean.

We went back to our resort with the same taxi, it was another half an hour ride. Our taxi driver is very kind. We decided to book the same taxi driver for our next day in Batam. He agreed to our requests happily, and even gave us discounted fares.

When we reach back to our hotel rooms, we were somehow exhausted, which was weird, because we didn't exactly use up a lot of energy throughout the day and we kept eating. CQ and I were being surprised by Castalos, Eugene and Jessica with a birthday cake. I really have no idea when did they get the cake, because I was with them throughout the whole day, most of the time.

Thank you so much for the cake! 

My shared birthday cake with CQ

We played some games, and we decided to retire early. I am not sure if there was due to the therapeutic effect of foot reflexology, I slept pretty well throughout the night.

-End of Part I-