Last day of April. Today is Sunday, good thing tomorrow is a public holiday but where did my Saturday go?!? Continuation of my Batam trip.
After hopping on and off the bus to places with very short walking distant, it’s not even 500m! It’s time for lunch.
You can find fresh seafood and also bird nest here. It looks like everywhere we went, there’s always “gold”. Obviously it belongs to the same company/boss. It’s built to cater for the tourists especially the mainland Chinese tourists.
These are some food we had. So-so only. We were seated with the Chinese group, now… I finally experienced first hand! You practically have to act fast to get your food! Otherwise, nothing left. The other table with other middle-aged Singaporeans, there’s a lot of leftover! We had to fight for our food at our table! *LOL* Gosh… Should sit with those uncles and aunties.
After lunch, for those who signed up to the optional activities, they were sent there to play while the rest of us just walked around or just stayed in the bus waiting. There’s a paintball activity which we thought it’s shooting each other but guess what?!?! Hahaha! It’s shooting targets! I would say most of us were caught by surprise and said luckily we didn’t sign up for it.
After the optional activities, we were sent to a batik outlet shop. Again… We went in, one round and came out. That is sure an interesting bottle opener, the only thing that worth sharing heheh…
Left: Honey cake(bika ambon) something everyone raves about when they are in Batam. However, after I tasted it, nuh… I would prefer our honeycomb cake (kek sarang semut). The cake from this shop is so expensive! For tourist that’s why. We found it so much cheaper at the shopping mall.
Right: Admiral Cheng Ho statue… Hmm… I don’t know how to explain.
Next, Batam Miniature House Indonesia. Not far away, just at the compound nearby but we were driven to it hahaha!
Hmm… I’m speechless again… Just took some photos and went back to the bus.
Next activity, go cart. Optional activity, we waited for those playing.
Oh… During the trip, we did visit two shops selling local snacks. Well… Expensive as usual. We eyed what we wanted and decided to hunt it down at the shopping mall in Batam.
Our second last stop was massage session at a local spa. In and out, one group after another. We were told not to give any tips more than SGD2. The masseur tried having small talk with me after found out that I’m Malaysian. She gave me her pity story and hoping I could give her more tips while my friend was being hinted by her masseur that she wanted her to bring her into Singapore or Malaysia to work. Pity for them but I pretended I fell asleep, not listening. I didn’t give any tips at all. Some people will surely said I have no empathy but when in this situation, I would mind my own safety first.
In fact, one of our plans is to indulge in a spa session here but after experiencing what we had during the tour, we were quite wary to go for any the next day. In fact we found a few very professional ones but it’s too expensive, we didn’t bring much money there. So we scrapped the plan.
Left: Something we don’t get at home. Congratulatory message along the road. Very colourful, this is more interesting than the places we went. Just outside the road leading to our hotel*LOL*
Right: Nagoya area, we went to the shopping mall to buy the local snacks, some items, and had our meal here. Not much to buy because this is Indonesia, things can be found in Malaysia and Singapore. For Singaporean, it’s cheap but for us, Malaysians, better go home to buy, our currency is too weak.
We did not get to see the beach which we were given the impression that there should be nice beaches around, well… It’s our own fault. We’re taking a city tour package, where got beach?
Before I end the post, for the ladies, DO NOT wear shorts and/or sleeveless apparels as you will put yourself up to wolf whistling and all sort of uncomfortable/disturbing remarks which we experienced. According to my friend, this is how usually those in the prostitution industry here will wear.
So that concludes my tour in Batam. Will be reviewing the hotel I stayed in the next post.