Quality Resort Waterfront Marina Batam

... food & loved a sweet called Onde Onde that was filled with brown sugar syrup. Sat & ate at this cafe next to an elderly couple who had about 6 dishes to share between them. They were locals & this is how they live & eat.




Eating & shopping is just so cheap. This ...

... in my pack. But really, who loses their wallet on Day 1?? At least I had already paid out for the 3 nights accommodation.

Fortunately I had put $6 into my pocket for the bus hopper that I never ended up catching so I was able to get the train back to the hostel where I then had to contact the banks back in NZ to cancel my credit and EFT POS card. Fortunately – I had more cash in another wallet, and I have a spare ‘backup’ cards to ...

... above the shop – the alleyways between them were pretty messy, although the shopfronts were generally pretty tidy.

We also passed the Singapore Cricket Club – where the playing fields were just so small – and also the famous Raffles Hotel where we will definitely have a “Singapore Sling” later on.

There was an enormous amount of preparation being done on the streets around Marina Bay for the upcoming Formula One ...

... to care. But there was a fairly cool collection of movies. I watched Dr Strangelove, a new episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, an episode of Peep Show, Rocky, Monster vs. Aliens, and Watchmen.

I hadn’t slept in almost 24 hours and prior to that I only had 5 hours the night before, so I was feeling it. However, I have always found it remarkably difficult to sleep on planes and this was no different. Usually I’ll read which would put me to sleep but all the lights ...

... The city looks particularly good when lit up at night. Some parts of the city, such as Clarke Quay which is where we stayed, are very artificial, but generally we quite liked the city. However, after spending the previous month in Beijing, Hong Kong and Tokyo, we were starting to feel a little fed up with big cities. We didn’t do any sightseeing or take any photographs, but spent our time here getting hair cuts, doing our laundry, going shopping, researching ...

... a teacher. After realising he didnt want to sell me something, i stood and chatted to him for a few minutes. He was very interesting, he was the first guy from his village apparently to leave the local area and he was very keen just to interact and chat briefly with people from all over the world. He told me the secret to living to a ripe old age was hard work. His parents were 97 and 104 respectively and they had worked hard all their lives. So i guess i am going to ...

... a little scary because you always seem to be chucked off the bus in some random place not knowing where on earth to head and just hope that there is someone that could help us poor lost students. this time we were picked up by a man who had a hostel in china town so headed on that way and it turned out to be a really nice place..... even had a roof terrace!!!!!!! the shopping in china town was AMAZING and i managed to replace my broken sunglasses and flipflops for ...

... insieme dal porto. Siamo in Indonesia; e' stato un parto trigemino, ma siamo in Indonesia. Corriamo al terminal dei traghetti domestici, per prendere il traghetto per Pekanbaru, sull'isola di Sumatra. Traghetto perso a causa dei casini con il visto e conseguente ritardo. Cazzo! Data astrale 9 novembre 2008, ore 9: Batam, assieme alle canadesi, traghetto perso, siamo bloccati su quest'isola che a mala pena so dov'e'. Prendiamo un taxi per l'unica cittadina dell'isola, Sekupang ...

... as soon as they handed it back to me. It hit me that this was my last country. The next time I come in through immigration, I'll be home. I walked across the parking lot to a big blue building that I read was the domestic ferry terminal. I went to every window there and they all told me the same thing: no ferries to Sumatra until tomorrow morning. ****. I'd have to spend the night in Batam. I bought a ticket to a city called Pekanbaru for the next morning and ...

BATAM Andy and I, compelled to spend a day at the beach, decided on a whim to take a boat to Batam, an Indonesian island conveniently accessible by ferry from both Singapore and Johor Bahru. Batam caters mostly to Singaporean holiday-goers, weekenders, and day-trippers, (and, as we later learned, hooker-hunters). It is a small, drab, unimpressive place destined to become little more than a resort ...