Blogs from Batam, Riau Archipelago, Indonesia, Asia

Hello my fellow travellers! So, after I woke up today I began by drinking a cup of Teh Tarik which was recommended to me by a friend from China, it is her favourite drink when she is in Singapore. It's basically tea with powdered milk and I found it quite nice but I still prefer just regular plain tea. While I drank my tea I had a good talk with one of my hosts, Jennifer, which was quite good because I had gotten this reserved sense from her like we're not quite getting along and I couldn't quite figure out why but our talk straightened my question marks and I won't go into more detail. When I was ready I took to the streets of Chinatown, it it a very nice place to walk around in, ... read more

In the last week of July, my friend Maike from Hamburg came to Singapore for a few days. The last Monday of the month was a public holiday, so we decided to spend a long weekend in Batam, the Indonesian island that is just 30 minutes by ship from Singapore. The Saturday morning started early and with a lot of queueing. We had to be at the Harbour Front Terminal not far from where I live at quarter past seven and queue to pick up our boarding passes for the boat. The journey itself was quick and easy and we arrived in Batam after only a little more than half an hour. Then, however, we had to queue at immigration for two hours. First we had to wait in front of one counter to pay for ... read more

Saturday, 4th January 2014 In celebration of H's liberalisation from his job, he got a room at Harris Batam Centre during the first weekend of 2014. So I volunteered to get hold of the ferry tickets for our 10.20am voyage to the island of Batam. Harris was a familiar hotel which I had stayed over for two earlier occasions. Nothing much had deviated from my past experiences even though the room check-in was available only after 2.30pm. Well, since H had scored such a nice deal from agoda, we were not really complaining. Black Canyon remained our favourite restaurant as we had our lunch during our first day and brunch on the next day. The 110,000 Rupiah breakfast at the hotel certainly did not appeal to us. I had a great stay over the weekend to ... read more

Sunday, 12th May 2013 I took off to Batam View Resort just before the start of my new job with no itinerary, no plans and no friends. This mini-getaway was a perfect excuse for me to reward myself for working hard over the past year. So on the 12th of May, I switched off my phone and set off to Batam View from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. Since it was a Sunday when I checked-in, the resort was fast emptying out with weekend guests returning back to Singapore. I spent my day swimming and getting some spa treatments within the resort. My evening was spent hanging out along the beach front while admiring the glorious sunset of the beautiful skies. This was a perfect getaway for me without a care in this world. It was also ... read more

Saturday, 25th August 2012 Before I knew it, four of us were on our way to the industrial island of Batam for our weekend getaway. url=http://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/ShowUserReviews-g297717-d2295860-r138395373-Harris_Hotel_Batam_Center-Batam_Riau_Archipelago_Riau_Islands_Province.htmlHarris Batam Centre was chosen as it was recommended by a close friend. They had just returned from their company retreat together with some nice reviews of the place. Our bookings were done through asiatravel.com, an online portal that I had been dealing with for my Batam trips all these years. For me, I remained skeptical of those "coupon" websites given all the fine prints, surcharges and the liquidity of the kucing kurap agents as a whole. Prices quoted remained competitive for our 2 Day Getaway Programme complete with return ferries, 1 night accomodation and 2 meals. We too... read more