Our Travel Tales: 2D1N @ Batam – Day 1 Part 2

(This is a back-dated post)

The guided tour ended at 2 pm in the afternoon where we were sent to one of the local shopping mall – Batam City Square for Free & Easy.

I think we spent most of our money there. We shopped in the supermarket and we spent SGD 30 for two big packets of stuffs. Beside foods, snack, the money was spent on buying Yvette’s toiletries too. Something caught my attention in the supermarket. The oil is packed in a package form.

This only cost 30 cents SGD

We moved on in the shopping mall and I found this shop that make “handmade wooden sign craft” (I really don’t how to name this item). I made one for Yvette and will hang this outside her room at home. We spent S$15 for this plate.

The pick-up time is 4.45 pm Batam time. We had a quickly brunch at the KFC. Hubby brought one set of meal and it was shared by 6 of us. @_@

I wasn’t very happy with the tour guide’s decision on sending those people off to the Jetty and made us waited for 20 to 25 mins when we were supposed to check in. Yvette was feeling tired as she only napped for 2 hour for the time she lost in the morning and she didn’t sleep at all in the afternoon. We have put in our best effort to entertain Yvette so that she won’t dozed off at the wrong timing. (If she sleeps now, she won’t be able to sleep at night.)

Our effort was paid off.

When we reached hotel, it was close to 7 pm Batam time (which mean, it was close to 8 pm Singapore time.)

Haiz

This is the problem when we are travelling on guided tour.

Again we were shock to find out the room they given to us was wrong. Instead of giving us a shared bed, we have two single beds again. What we did this round was to join the bed together ourselves.

I quickly bathed Yvette, changed her and made our way for our dinner. We have chicken chop and I ordered rice for Yvette guessing that she might not like the food.

After dinner we headed back to my SIL’s room for R&R. (SIL was staying next to our room.)

The 90mins of traditional massage was the last agenda of our day. Me and my niece Capri went to off first after saying bye bye to Yvette. The papa and my SIL sneaked out the room. Yvette didn’t cry when we were off.

I would say my niece, Ting aka Cheryl did a good job in baby-sitting Yvette. Yvette only started to cry 45 mins later. As she was howling, my niece carried her to me where I was doing my massage. (The Spa was located in the hotel.) She stopped crying immediately after she saw me. The she wanted to be nursed.

Something out of the norm happened toward the end of our massaging session. The whole hotel actually black-out!

Woot!!!

This was the first time I encounter this situation. Luckily, my niece’s phone was able to flash out the flash light. If not we will be walking in the dark when we walked out the Spa.

The light came back after 10 mins. We went back to our room.

I realised whenever we were not heading home during Yvette’s bed time, she was exceptionally energetic. There wasn’t any sign of tiredness at all. With no other choice, I have to move back to our room to pat Yvette to her dreamland. I only managed to get her to sleep at 12 am Singapore Time.

Our Travel Tales: 2D1N @ Batam – Day 1 Part 1

(This is a back-dated post)

This is a last minute trip as we are still in holiday mood. My SIL’s family was just back from Melbourne about one week ago and we were just back from Hong Kong a month back.

My niece suggested going Batam for 2D1N as she has two day off in lieu in a row. We booked our tour with MaxPac Travel for S$148 per pax and S$55 for Yvette. I won’t say this is a very good deal but package do include the following:

1. 2 way return ferry ticket (Harbourfront-Batam-Harbourfront)
2. Land transfers (Jetty-Hotel-Jetty)
3. 1 N accommodation at Golden View Hotel with breakfast
4. Welcome Drink (This is nothing)
5. 1 Seafood Lunch at Golden Prawn 933 Seafood Restaurant
6. 1 Free Set Dinner Rajawali
7. Breakfast on Day 2 morning
8. Batam City Tour on Day 1
9. 90 minutes of Traditional Massage or 10 mins Go-Kart Ride
10. Land Transfer by air conditional bus
11. Service of 1 Local Guide with S$2 tips to be paid at end of the tour
12. PDF & Batam Terminal Fee S$27.00 per head

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Our day started early in the morning. We woke up at 7 am to wait for my niece’s boyfriend to fetch us to Harbour Front Jetty. We met at 7.45am at our void deck. Luckily due to holiday season in Singapore, the traffic to Harbour Front was really smooth.

I think she still want to sleep

 

We had breakfast at Macdonald before we boarded the ferry at 9.20 am and reached Batam Sekupang International Ferry Terminal at 9.20 am too (Batam is an hour behind Singapore.)

Enjoying the sea breeze with Papa

 

Our first stop was to visit one of the largest Buddhist temples in SEA, Maha Vihara Duta Maitreya is also known as the Laughing Buddha Temple. Apparently the interest of visiting the temple was not strong. We only roamed around and took some pictures.

Before we hop on to the bus again, we found this tree that look like Christmas Tree to me. Yvette likes the leaves of the tree and even plucked the leaves and smelled it.

Then we moved on to Polo Shop, we had brought nothing but I found one bag I like. I didn’t buy because the material of the bag is not excellent. (Not waterproof and it will get dirty easily.)

The guide brought us to the GTS Local Product Shop before we have our lunch. In this shop we can buy their local snacks, keropok. Yvette dozed off while we shopped.

Don't really like this umbrella stroller. Yvette didn't seem to be as comfort.

 

Then we proceeded to our lunch at the restaurant – Golden Prawn 933 Live Seafood Restaurant that was built on wood and bamboo next to the shop.

Love this picture. (This picture was taken by my niece Capri using FujiFilm camera)

 

Since Yvette was sleeping, I brought a packet of fried rice for her for only SGD 2. She woke up after we was about to finish our lunch. We walked over to Cultural Village. The local kampong villager preformed Kuda Lumping Dance and talent like peeling the coconut using their teeth and even eat glass. I didn’t watch the show as I was busying feeding Yvette at the wooden table and stool under the tree.

Our next stop was to visit Taman Mini Indonesia where we could see different type of houses found within 33 provinces of Indonesia.

One of the highlight of our trip was to let Yvette has a close encounter with the monkey. We moved to Edventure Teambuilding Park for Go Kart and there was a monkey performing there too. Perhaps Yvette was too young to understand the monkey might attack her. She was so close to the monkey to the extent our hearts were racing. And the monkey kept coming back to Yvette. I think the owner knew we don’t mind to keep donating money to the monkey. (We passed money to Yvette to put in the “performance pail” when the monkey came by.)

The monkey didn't look friendy to me

After spending most of our time moving up and down the bus, we were too tired to get down to Bengkong dried foodstuff market and Vihara Buddhi Bakti Temple also known as Tua Pek Kong Bio among locals.