Batam-in It Up

One of the great parts about Singapore is that within just an hour or two, many destinations can be reached by boat. Batam is a small Indonesian island located only an hours boat ride from Singapore. Although it may not be incredibly scenic or the most beautiful place in the world, it certainly provides a good time when enjoyed with good people. And that's exactly what happened during a weekend in February.

I have made some new friends here from Colorado. They recently had a retreat for work on Batam and decided to stay for the weekend. It didn't take much convincing for a few more of us to join them on Friday after work for the weekend as well. We stayed in a resort-like hotel that had a nice pool, a few restaurants & bars, and was situated on the bay. It had everything you would need for the weekend, but we had some other ideas in mind.



The four guys in the group decided to play a round of 18 holes at one of the popular golf courses nearby. Compared to the astronomical prices in Singapore to play golf, it was comparably a pretty good deal. The amazing thing about golfing here, however, was that you were treated like a king. After getting over the tactfully fancy Egyptian fountains scattered around the entrance to the club, we were walked to our golf carts where we were introduced to our individual caddies. The caddies carried our bags, chose our clubs, threw us an extra ball when we needed one (which obviously wasn't often) and provided endless entertainment. Oh, and did I mention they were all young females?




The course itself was pretty sweet. Well maintained and fairly difficult with a lot of OB (out of bounds) and even some monkeys. Well, at least there were signs talking about monkeys. All of that combined with a couple coolers filled with cold drinks and the comments in broken-English on each swing by our caddies, and it was a day to remember.




After our day on the course, we headed back to the hotel for some water-basketball in the pool and a fat burger at the restaurant. We spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool enjoying some drinks before we headed out to the local "village" on the waterfront for some grub. We were taken to a pretty cool place that was basically a large dock on stilts over the water. We ordered a variety of food that included rice, noodles, prawns, and chili crab! We ended the night with another drink at the bar before heading back to the hotel.



The next morning I took a quick run before breakfast and then we headed into the main city on the island. Come to think of it, I don't even know what the city is called; possibly Batam City. Within 20 minutes, we were getting dropped off at the large mall in the middle of the city, which is apparently the only thing visited by anyone in the area. We were all pretty excited when we saw that it had an A&W restaurant, and some of us even enjoyed a one hour massage for $11!



Overall, it was a great weekend away from Singapore with some great people. It was nice to do something different from the norm and get away for a fun and relaxing break. And that's it for now!