Batam, Indonesia

Hubby and I enjoyed a short getaway in Batam, Indonesia last weekend. We'd not gone there for quite a few years. Never did enjoy it because my few visits there have always made me feel Batam was quite boring. The shopping used to be quite blah for me.

Sent the kids to school on Friday morning and then we set off for Harbour Front to take the Wavemaster Ferry to Harbour Bay Ferry Terminal in Batam.

Comfortable 40 minute ride from Singapore's Harbour Front to Batam's Harbour Bay

There are several ferry terminals in Batam. If it's your first time there, I'd suggest you do some homework to see which one is closer to your hotel. We picked Harbour Bay (easy to remember right? Harbour Front in Singapore, Harbour Bay in Batam) to disembark as it'd be only a 10 or 15 minute ride away from the Nagoya Hill Shopping Mall where our hotel would be near. We also picked a hotel near in the Nagoya area. Our intention was to do shopping and not relax by a pool.

On our last previous trip, our son had accompanied us and we'd stayed at a beach resort. At least for the kids, there'd be something to do at a resort, like swimming, bowling and.....bowling, swimming and.....swimming, bowling...and some table tennis....ha ha ha.. Yes, somewhat boring for people like hubs and myself. I don't dig going on a holiday to sleep by the beach or just laze by a pool. I can do that in Singapore. So for Mike and myself, we love going on holidays where we get to 'go out' and 'explore'; just soak in the places, people and culture.

WHO GOES TO BATAM for a holiday and then goes to check out a WET market? We do!

Live chickens at a wet market in Batam - A rare or perhaps non-existent sight in Singapore now.

We went to buy some hot red chilli peppers. Their regular sized chillies are very, very thin and long but not really hot enough for me. However, their chilli padi rocks! We were also surpised to see cinammon sticks a metre long but unfortunately, didn't snap any pics of them.

Morning market quite near Nagoya area (near Ramayana shopping centre) 

The Nagoya Hill Shopping Mall only opens around 10am Batam time (they are an hour behind Singapore time) so after breakfast, Mike and I would while away our time by exploring the surrounding 'old' town near our hotel. It's a fair walk but so interesting to skip the many potholes, trying my darnest not to fall into any 'longkangs' or sprain my ankle (like I did in Bangkok). After making a quick visit to the wet market (Clearly, hubs knows this enough to tease me. The wet market is SO NOT FOR PSEUDO TAI-TAI ME...WET MUDDY TOES....URGH! SUPERMARKET PLEEEZE), we stumbled upon a morning 'pasar-malam' like street. Okay, that sounded weird; morning night market. Hee hee. You know what I mean, lah. A morning market.

This whole stretch of makeshift vendors were selling secondhand clothes. After scouring through some clothes, I told Mike that I suspected these clothes were from Singapore. Some of the brands were unique to our tiny island. Each piece was selling from about SGD3. The vendors knew which were the better brands and they hung them up whereas the 'brandless' pieces were dumped on the floor in piles. The locals usually rummaged through those piles. Not sure how much those were going for. I bet the Singapore Karang Guni men sell these piles to them for a song. Many, many years ago, I saw that happening in our Lucky Plaza. The foreign domestic workers were buying piles and piles of them for a few dollars to send them home to the Philippines. Back to Batam.

This trip, we'd gone to 3 shopping malls. The first being where the Harbour Front Bay Ferry Terminal was. Right next to the terminal is a huge mall where the Wavemaster ticketing office is. As soon as we'd arrived, we'd walked over, luggage and all, to book our return tickets back. Forgot to take note of the name of the mall but it's where Carrefour is housed. Frankly, it's so huge and yet creepily empty. Our best deals were found at the foyer where a vendor was selling 'genuine' factory outlet shirts which weren't very cheap by Batam standards. Some decent eateries there. I dislike the toilets there. Could not find the flush handle! Had to spray the bidet. Really, that's not something you want to do after you.....

Ok, actually, nothing is really cheap in Batam. Even our taxi fares were averaging SGD7 or more per trip between the ferry terminal and hotel. I was grumbling about this but Mike reminded me that it's still cheap compared to Sg. Even a cab ride from a nearby foodcourt to our hotel cost about SGD5. That's not cheap in my books. I know it's way cheaper than in Singapore but this is not Singapore. It's just that tonnes of Singaporean visitors have given them reason to drive prices up.

Anyhow, the other shopping mall we'd gone to is the Megamall Batam Centre (there is a ferry terminal at Batam Centre). It's fancier than Nagoya Hill Shopping Mall and I didn't like it. Why? Because it's just like any standard shopping centre in Singapore, housing the same brand names. Why would I want to bother since the prices aren't much cheaper? Spotted many Singaporeans there. As soon as we arrived, we couldn't wait to leave. If your hotel is near there and you have the time, please spend SGD7 and take a cab to Nagoya Hill Shopping Mall. I did find time to take a pic with our favourite A&W bear though. Don't know why I've never done that at the A&W in Thailand.

A&W Megamall, Batam Centre

Of course the Megamall might be to your liking IF you're looking for the same brands you can find back home but you're on the lookout for bargains. There is a Matahari there so, all is not lost.

Our favourite shopping place in Batam is definitely Nagoya Hill Shopping Mall (maybe it's called Nagoya Hill Shopping Centre instead of Mall, I'm not sure and didn't bother to check). It's a mish-mash of electronics, clothes, shoes, fake goods, Matahari and food outlets. Mike says he's NEVER seen such a wide range of fake watches. I mean, we've been to KL's Chinatown countless times but this place beats it hands down! The crazy thing? They sell the 'genuine' with the fakes! I mean, they actually place them side by side. How will any consumer believe it to be the real thing?

Outside Nagoya Shopping Mall. There are two entrances and I think this is the older one.

We enjoyed shopping in Matahari for guy clothes because some were made in Indonesia. We don't find the brands back home and the prints on the quality Tees are really creative. Mike bought some jeans & bermudas for John (we're all T-shirt and jeans people). I actually went through the first day not buying anything (can you even believe that?) and had gone back to the hotel with a whole stash just for the kids. But on the second visit to Matahari, I discovered a sale - 3 good quality outfits for IDR199,000.00 That's like one hundred and ninety-nine thousand Indonesian Rupiah (yes, took me 3 days to get used to the colour of their money). Hee hee. Okay, it translated into approximately SGD28. THREE, LEH!!! That's so like the bargain outfits I found in Bangkok's Platinum Mall. Grabbed like crazy. I love my husband who tells me he's walking around (cos I'm going to the changing room), then comes back and finds me still going to the changing room, then stands around while I er....go to the changing room again. hee hee hee.....not my intention to ill-treat him. He dug around for MORE outfits to try and even told me to BUY, LAH! WORTH IT! I now, have TWELVE new outfits for a song. Most pleased, this woman.

I'm not saying ALL of Matahari's clothes are cheap. In fact, most of them aren't. I can find cheaper back home. Just saying some of their locals brands are worth the buy. I'm not only a cheapskate where it comes to spending on clothes, hor. They have to be cheap but not look cheap.

Oh, by the way, crossing the roads here are a pain. The cars generally don't travel very fast (the odd one does) because it's so crowded but there are hardly any traffic lights and no one cares about the zebra crossings. The locals CROSS FIRST THEN let the cars stop. Watch and learn. Try not to get yourself killed and make sure you buy your travel insurance.

At night, there's nothing much to do unless you're seeking 'that' kind of 'fun'. Come on, be honest, what do you think the hordes and hordes of Singapore men go to Batam to do? Shop? We decent, boring people headed for some seafood instead.

Seafood stall in Nagoya. We didn't eat here though. Thought the adorable boat was picture worthy.

Windsor Food Court. Thai style steamed fish (fresh from the tank). Felt kinda sorry for the fella.

Not cheap. Very Singapore pricing.

On our first day, we'd purchased a local SIM card to call the kids with. The vendor claimed to be a Singaporean (I goaded him to sing Majullah Singapura -- actually I said, 'Can you sing, Mari kita?' and he flashed me his pink I/C!!!) and we'd asked him where to go get my seafood fix. He said without transport, he'd advise us to just walk down the road to Windsor Food Court. We did and it was a fair walk (cannot tahan the walk -- took a cab back later). The place is reminiscent of our former Wonderland Amusement Park in Kallang. Many round tables, loud laughter, music blasting with beer girls a hopping from table to table. I forgot to mention the Newton Hawker-like touts. Sian. In the end, Mike said we had to just go with one of them because we had no idea which stall was good or which wasn't. Chinese lady spoke teochew so it was quite easy to order (most of the Chinese speak teochew). 

Fairly horrible chilli crab in Batam

The steamed fish was lovely. Although a tad too sweet, it was at least fresh. However, the crab was so bad, I hardly touched it. Mike had to keep reminding me to eat it. Mike isn't very into seafood mainly because it entails one using one's hands to pick out shells or bones. That's a no-no for him. He doesn't like the idea of choking on bones and he doesn't like to get his hands dirty where food is concerned. He ordered his Bak-kut-teh and some chicken wings for me. The most he did was eat the fish pieces which had already passed my quality control inspection (checked for no bones) or the tangy Thai gravy. The chilli was so so so so blasting spicy that I had to drink 3 cans of Yeo's Chrysanthemum (which by the way, silly me just learnt was referred to as Teh-bunga in Indonesia!).

Windor Food Court

 We sat next to a large round table of Japanese men and their......beer escorts. It was interesting to see the  tips some left for the girls at the end of their meal and how the girls batted their eyelashes for more then skip off to entertain the next table of men as soon as this one had left. Also interesting was the way some of the men slithered off to the loo just when the bill was being called. They didn't return till AFTER the bill had been paid by the men still seated at the table! Hah! That's strategy for ya! 

They'd been so busy with their seafood, beer and sweet young things that I could have snapped their pics but I didn't lah. Maybe some are hotshot CEOs or what have you in Singapore. Betcha they'd told their other halves they were there to score their hole-in-ones (but not on the golfing green)! The girls were very fakey-clingy but the men were actually quite restrained. No hanky panky. 

KTV Time!

Then it was time for the stars to shine! A big karaoke room for just the two of us! Crazy it was. We'd spent half the time trying to figure out the song selection controls, no thanks to the unhelpful waiter. By the time we'd gotten into the groove, it was time to go! Sheesh! We'll be back for more. Oh, hubby said the counter girls told him he was handsome when he'd gone out to ask them how much time we had left. Er, ok, whatever. I told him he was so naive, they were probably hinting that they were available to give him a 'happy ending'! Oh yes, speaking of 'happy endings', we did go for a massage, facial and ear candling. No 'happy endings' for him from them because I WAS NEXT TO HIM but we were happy, I guess (I say 'I guess' because I actually find massages and facials have their 'painful' moments and I hate that).



Hubs and I had a lovely time in Batam. Not that Batam was fantastic. It is better now but nothing much has changed. It still looks 'aged'. It's really a waste. Anyhow, after being married for more than 2 decades, we're only just finding the time to spend some together. Now that the kids are older, we intend to squeeze in more alone time as and when we can. They need not be expensive getaways. Whether it's in the confines of our own room or on a short getaway, the important thing is to enjoy each other's company. We've come a long way as a couple. Many ups and downs just like any other marriage and it's not always easy but we try. We intend to grow old together and because we know we love each other, that's something to hold on to.