It has been some time since the last time i wrote in this blog. Just wanted to wish everybody Happy New Year. It was a rough year in 2015 as I have changed 2 jobs and moved to a new country. Currently I am in a small island just beside Malaysia, know where is it? :)
During Christmas, my girlfriend came over to visit me in the small island. Therefore, out of bored we decided to pay our nearby place BATAM a visit. all this was planned in a very short time as it is a last min decision. we are going for a 2 days 1 night trip to BATAM.
first step is our accommodation, we search for a good accommodation and goes down to 2. Harris Hotel Batam or Turi Beach Resort. The difference between this 2 place is 1 is near the town, another is near the beach. At last we decided to go with the beach.
GROUPON is our next best friend cause most of the hotel in Batam you can have a great deal from Groupon. I picked up the deal for Turi Beach Resort together with return ferry ticket from Tanah Merah Terminal to Nongsapura Terminal. Please take note there are 2 terminal who goes to Batam in Singapore; HarbourFront and Tanah Merah. It all depends where you want to reach in Batam; Batam Centre or Nongsapura.
Everything was booked by communicating with the hotel representative together with our ferry ticket. We are good to go. Please refer to the ferry schedule and plan your trip properly. Remember you can only check in your hotel at 3pm and Batam is on GMT +7 (which is 1 hour slower).
A quick snapshot of what we did during our stay in Batam.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | |
| Morning | Arrived Batam | Return back to Singapore |
| Afternoon | Massage and Supermarket | |
| Night | Pedicure and BBQ dinner | |
| Where we stayed | Turi Beach Resort |
we booked a driver through the hotel to take us around in Batam. it cost us 400,000 rupiah (approx. S$40) and it is mainly only for half day. If you have 4 people I think it is very reasonable. Since we have very limited time, we decided to go Nagoya hill and do shopping together with massage there. But if you have more time, you can always opt to go to cultural tour, mosque and temple visit and sports activity at Turi Beach.
Sorry didn't have much photo in Batam but hopefully this would give you a good idea of what to do in Batam. According to some people, there are only 4 things to do in Batam.
1) Massage (300,000 rupiah each)
2) Medi/Pedicure (150,000 rupiah)
3) Supermarket (??? rupiah) specially indomee
4) A&W rootbeer (less than 50,000 rupiah)
After you have done all those you are good to go or just find a cafe and chill. Just a word of advise, if you wanted to buy branded stuff in Batam, think before you do. Sometimes when it is too good to be true, it is really too good to be true.
If you want to know more please leave a comment. Till next time~
If you missed my Korea itinerary, please refer to 7 days 6 night Korea trip
If you missed my Hong Kong itinerary, please refer to 5 days 4 night Hong Kong trip
