Wednesday, September 05, 2007
I couldn't remember the last time I went to Batam, must have been too young. Well, on this very day, the third of September, I'll embark on a journey to my lost memory.
03/09/2007
My first impression of Batam was, "Where are all the people?". The place was filled with mud, dirt and 'war-torn' houses, the place looked as if it had been through a dreadful war. The living conditions were very poor. After a bumpy bus ride, we reached the resort, the scenery was beautiful but the standard of a 4 star hotel didn't meet out expectations.
As we approached our rooms which were very far away from the lobby, we were welcomed by a swarm of mosquitoes at the front door and as we entered the room, there was a stuffy stench. Certainly it was hell to most of my friends but I've seen worst. After a tour around the area, we went for lunch at a shopping centre filled with copy-righted goods. In the shopping centre, we took a break for our legs and went for a game of pool...
As for dinner, we went to have seafood, the price was extremely low, S$10 for each person and you can get prawns, crabs, fish, vegetables that are very tasty.
Night falls... we had fun in our rooms watching tv and chatting. Then around 1030pm, we approached the bar to have a few drinks and play some pool. I ordered a Johnny Walker Black Label on the rocks, tasted nice but a little diluted.
04/09/2007
THE ROOM with mosquito netting...
Jetty
This day we went to the Batamec Shipyard where it was absolutely muddy and dirty. It was different from the Keppel's one, for this shipyard, we could go down to take a walk into the construction areas.
After that we went to have lunch at a place which the manager of the shipyard introduced to us. It was seafood again, and it wasn't as good as the previous day. After which, we went to a huge classy shopping mall which I bought nothing except bubble gums. It wasn't that there was nothing to buy, its just that I simply have everything, no point buying more. Dinner was once again introduced by the manager, however this time, the seafood was excellent. Simply 15 dollars per person and you can get drunken prawns, chili crab and many more seafood delights.
Night falls... We all went to the bar for drinks. I already bought an alcoholic drink and left it in the refrigerator of the hotel room, so I wasn't intending of getting a drink in the bar, instead my intention was to watch C.S.I there. When I reached the bar, Carrie, a friend of mine gave up drinking her bloody mary drink and offered it to me. So, oh well, I took it. Honestly, it did tasted rather spicy but soon, I got numb of the taste and drank all of it. Then I played a game of pool with Poh Han and I lost to him because I bloody couldn't shoot the last damn ball into the hole. After the game, Carrie offered me white wine this time, saying that it didn't taste well. I tried it, indeed, the wine tasted so diluted, so much that I declined the offer. After the 'bar fun', we proceeded back to our rooms for card games, movies and more alcohol! Slept at 2 in the morning filled with alcohol in our brains.
05/09/2007
Our departure date. As we were having our morning breakfast, we met students from the Singapore Polytechnic. We left Batam in a gorgeous ferry where there was an open deck on the top of the ferry where we all could have a 360 degree sight see of the sea and get some sea breeze into our face. As we approached into Singapore waters, a coast guard stopped us to check our ferry, a rare incident.
My Batam trip ends here.
[Taking privacy into consideration, some content is excluded]
artificious ' 1:35 pm
