Batam trip

Oh it's me again! hoh? why am i back you say?

cuz i have been to batam and back! seriously, unhappy singaporeans should travel abroad to discover the true beauty of singapore. otherwise if they like it better over there, they can always move over. its a win-win either way

so i went to batam with my mum, 2 aunts with their families which totalled to 11 people inclusive of pesty kids. we got up really early, like 6+ am to shower, have breakfast and make our way to HarbourFront Center which my mum still calls it World Trade Center.

so at 10am we left singapore on a ferry to batam and reached there at 11 sg time. batam lags an hour (GMT+7) so it was only 10am there. so we reached there and booked the 8pm SG time ferry back to sg and we boarded the van which we booked earlier


Batam ferry terminal at 10am batam time.


waiting to book the timing back. kids were bored

so first we went to a Datuk's house. initially i thought a Datuk was those malaysian Datuk, the super rich and wealthy kind. it was only when i reached the house that i realised it was a Medium/fortune teller. my aunt resigned from her job recently and wondered if she shld start a business, so she wanted to know if this year would be auspicious. so we waited half an hour for her while the datuk checked her fortune. turns out to be quite like a scam

the datuk told her that this year is a bad year to start a business. but the best time would be in august. she advised my aunt to bathe in the water she provided at 4.30am the following morning and have to go 6 different temples to pray. if my aunt still is indecisive, she is to go back to consult the datuk. sounds like a scam to me T.T

they were talking abt the property in indonesia. the bungalow which the datuk stayed only costs 20k SGD. a HDB could well enough buy 15 bungalows. and oh did i mention we were almost a millionaire there? 1sgd=6250rp

we then went to have lunch at a road side stall serving nasi padang. when we first reached there, this man held 15 plates on both hands, each plate stacked on each another and laid it on our table one by one. they charge us only the plates which we eat and they served a pot of rice. it wasnt too bad, except for it being cold and that it costs slightly cheaper than sg only...


15 plates stacked ontop of each other with 1 man carrying. big pot of rice




the very thin banana. not very thin in this picture, but it's thin!

then after having lunch we went to 2 temples. i only took pictures of the second temple and it was huge! it's a mansion on its own with individual halls for each god. the place was expansive!



the huge temple





so after that the kids were bored to death and were playing their DS lites and Nintendo games, screaming as they tried to get their hands on the console. so we decided to the largest shopping mall, Nagoya Hills


looking like bugis junction


lol. no it does not serve chocolates

It looked pretty much like a sg shopping center almost as large as vivocity. but there wasn't much to do. the side stalls reminded me of the ones we have at bugis junction. anyway, being at the mall made me realise that the indonesian malay girls wear coloured skinnies like those in sg. the chinese guys look dorky..

the traffic in batam is terrible? more than 2 ppl sit on motorbikes and at Nagoya Hills, cars were all jammed up at the alighting point so badly it was chaotic. it costs $0.30sgd/hr to park there T.T families of 4 sit on 1 motorbike to travel about. kid driver kid mum. so terribly dangerous. and while travelling we saw this man on his motorbike travelling with a cupboard on the backseat. yes.. a CUPBOARD which is not strapped. it was balancing on his back and steering with only 1 hand. he probably could join the circus if he balanced another cupboard or two.


super bad traffic congestion here

we then went to yet another shopping centre, this time less ppl and more ulu. the aunties and my mum went for foot reflexology while the rest of us went to timezone to play. it was kinda boring and we left the place once the ladies were done and relaxed. went back to the ferry terminal to get a ferry home. reached sg at 9pm before having dinner.

so dead tired when i reached home. it was an eye opening experience after not visiting batam for over 10 years. ahhhh its great to be back in sg to see ppl wearing helmets on motorbikes with no more than 2 people. with proper roads that dont allow you to turn other than the indicated direction.