It has been 4 years since we last visited Batam. So here we are again to Batam island for our family trip!
We bought our tickets to/from Batam via Qoo10 from THK tour operator. The price was $35 nett however we bought it during sales, after deducting cart coupon and Qpoints, it cost approx $26 nett per pax. Our ferry tickets were from the ferry operator - Majestic Ferry. As compared to 4 years ago, Majestic ferry and batam fast seems to be the only 2 that dominate the batam ferry services. We no longer see berlian ferry or pacific ferry.
Batam is 1 hour behind Singapore's time. We chose the 10.40am (Singapore time) ferry from Harbourfront Terminal (Singapore ) to Batam Centre. Hence when we reach there it would be 10.40am Batam time.
There seem to be lesser people at the Harbourfront ferry terminal waiting area this time round.
The ferry allocated to us is called 'Majestic Wisdom' ~ Do take note of your ferry's gate departure on the screen. As usual, people will start queuing at the gate early, to have a chance of being the first few to board the ferry so as to choose the seats. Seats are on first come first serve basis. No pre-allocated seats.
We boarded our ferry at around 10.15am Singapore time ~
There were 2 Majestic ferries dock at the jetty. One of it is Majestic 9, which is slightly older and the other is our ferry - Majestic Wisdom!
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| Majestic 9 |
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| Majestic Wisdom |
Water is provided too - FOC! But self service and the toilet is really clean and new! The Majestic Wisdom ferry was only built in 2018, we can really smell the 'seat leather' when we board the ferry!
We had no complains at all. Ferry departed at 1045, slight delay but not a problem. It was such a smooth and awesome start to our weekend getaway!
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| cruise at harboufront |
The sea was calm and so was the ferry. We had movie screening in the ferry too - Doctor Strange, from a centralised TV haha. There's also glass panel at the front of the ferry allowing us to have a 270/360 degree view of the sea.
We arrived in about 1 hour time (10.45am Batam time). However this is where our mini nightmare starts :/ Due to our 4 years ago bad human jam experience with Batam Centre, we chose to arrive at Batam Centre and depart from Sekupang. However we were so wrong, and was trapped in human jam for 2 hours at Batam Centre.
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| Batam Centre ferry |
We were not able to disembark the ferry due to port congestion which was caused by slow clearance at immigration. There were just loads and heaps of humans - Singaporeans comprising the bulk of the crowd. Batam Centre being the main port, frequency of ferry arrival is at almost every 15 mins. Due to the human traffic at immigration clearance, they had to slow down the pace of ferry arrival.
After we managed to disembark we joined a long snake queue which extend all the way to the ferry berth area.
We were stuck in the queue for approx 2 hours and only managed to clear immigration at 12.50pm. Initially our plan was to shop at Batam Centre Mega Mall first then hop on to our pre-arranged driver's car for lunch at 12.30pm. However our schedule overrun due to the delay and we had to scrape our plan to shop around mega mall and push back our pre-arranged time with the driver to 1pm.
Our driver for the day is Mawardi whom we found his contact via his brother, Avin from Carousell listing. We chose them because of:
- Price ($50/ day)
- number of hours is 10 as compared to some others which may only provide 8 hours of service.
- 7 seater MPV (We feel that 5 person + 1 driver) is just nice.
Our main contact person prior to the trip was with Avin (+62 812 6820 4888). He is very prompt with his replies. On the early morning of our departure, he confirmed with us that his brother, Mawardi will be driving us around.
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| Mawardi - Driver at Batam |
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| Mawardi's MPV |
We strongly recommend Mawardi (+62 812 7358 3654), he is very punctual, friendly and is able to speak English. It might not be of a very good standard but definitely adequate for him to understand our needs and for us to engage in conversation with him. Although we delayed (met him at 1 instead of 12.30pm due to the immigration clearance delay), he was already at Batam Megamall A&W waiting for us at 12.30pm. Also, he is a non-smoker which we thought is pretty rare in Batam but this is a plus point for us being a family who don't smoke and abhor cigarette smell. So don't worry about entering his car feeling stinky. In fact, his car is really spick and span probably also due to the fact that his MPV is a new car which was only on the road for 2 months.
We really enjoyed his service so much until we even arranged for him to send us to our ferry terminal the next day. Okay, I digressed. So after we met him at A&W batam Mega mall at 1, he drove us to Fortuanate Taste vegetarian cafe near the temple which we will be visiting later on. It was about a 15 mins drive away and just a stone throw from the temple.
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| Inside his car |
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| Fortunate Taste Restaurant |
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| Inside Fortunate Taste Restaurant |
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| Desserts/drink menu |
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| porridge/side dish menu |
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| noodles/rice menu |
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| Radish sausage omelette rice (IDR 35,000, SGD 3.20) |
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| Bailing mushroom with organic brown rice (IDR 45,000, SGD $4.12) |
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| Seafoodless soya porridge (IDR 30,000, SGD $2.75) |
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| Signature braised rice (IDR 25,000, SGD $2.28) |
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| soya dumpling soup ramen (IDR 45,000, SGD $4.12) |
and last but not least for sharing:
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| Teochew Braised platter LARGE (IDR 68,000, SGD$ 6.20) |
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| Total bill at Fortunate Taste (O'bean) |
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| ice cream booth run by student - probably for charity |
We had both chocolate and dragonfruit flavours.
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| Dragon Fruit ice cream (IDR 10,000 , SGD $0.92) |
As it is not our first time here and there's nothing much changed, so won't be explaining much here. Visit out blog post in 2013 for more details of this temple.
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| sunny weather! |
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| our hired car for the day |
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| Hotel 89 |
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| lobby of hotel 89 |
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| Christmas is here early~ |
We reserved 2 rooms - Superior (2pax) and VIP Silver (3pax) via their online website. Payment is only upon arrival. The superior cost IDR 500,000 (SGD $45.80) and VIP silver cost IDR 980,000 (SGD $89.72). Both comes with breakfast :)
We will need to put a refundable deposit of IDR 300,000 or SGD $30 for each room. If you do not wish to place money with them, you can also choose to deposit your passport with them. Just one passport is required for the check in.
We were both given rooms at 6th floor which according to their receptionist is the only non-smoking floor.
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| VIP silver room |
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| VIP silver room |
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| Delicious goodies but chargeable |
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| window view from VIP Silver (Triple room) |
The rooms are generally quite spacious and basic amenities provided (e.g. slippers, kettle, shampoo, bottled water.) However one thing to note that there's quite poor soundproofing and we could hear people talking or coming back that night. One of our room (VIP Silver - Triple room) is a connecting room, and the room linked to ours was occupied during our stay. We could even hear their conversation if we placed our ear near the connecting room door. When we returned in the night at the end of the day, we actually smell cigarette in our room which we believed could be from the other room. We did not smell this when we first check in, in the afternoon.
We unpack abit and left at 3.50pm for Sekupang ferry terminal. It was about a 30 mins ride away. We decided to collect our return ferry boarding pass in advance as we were unsure if we are able to make it at least 1 hour before our actual ferry departure the next day.
We went to Majestic Ferry ticketing counter (Level 2 - same level as ferry departure) to collect our tickets. Collection was very fast as there was no queue. When we exited the Sekupang Ferry terminal, there was no parking charge levied as we only stayed for less than 15 mins! One thing which we noted in Batam is that parking charge at malls/ferry terminal are generally IDR 2,000 (SGD $0.20) per car.
After that, we went to KTM resort to see the famous Kuan Yin statue there. KTM resort is just 10 mins drive away from Sekupang ferry terminal. However it was under renovation :/ Workers were painting the kuan yin statue.
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| Kuan Yin statue at KTM resort |
Since we are there already, we did a mini exploration around the resort.
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| KTM resort |
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| Resort villa |
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| beach near KTM resort |
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| Kelong restaurant at the right side of the photo |
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| plenty of seashells on the beach |
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| Batam Layer Cake receipt |
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| photo taken when we finished our dinner at 8.30pm |
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| inside the restoran |
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| kitchen |
Food was also served at lightning speed!
Food on table, clockwise from top to bottom:
- Hotplate tofu and minced meat IDR 60,000 (SGD $5.50)
- Herbal half chicken IDR 100,000 (SGD $9.15)
- Steamed sea bass IDR 165,000 (SGD $15.11)
- Seafood tofu soup IDR 58,000 (SGD $5.31)
The following 2 dishes were recommended by the boss and they were fabulous!
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| Signature Dragon Ball IDR 40,000 SGD $3.66 |
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| Vegetable (野菜) IDR 38,000 SGD $ 3.48 |
And lastly when we about done, they served each of us free 'Manisan' or candied coconut dessert.
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| free dessert! |
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| Liang Kee 888 Restoran |
Click here for post on Day 2 of our Batam trip. :)
Side-Note:
Our driver Mawardi told us that on average, Batam workers salary are of about IDR 3 Million a day, which works out to approx IDR 100K (approx SGD $10) a day. Whereas if a motorist did not wear helmet when he drives and got caught by traffic police, he can get fined IDR 200K which is 2 days of his salary!
He also shared with us that generally car plates ending with Z are second hand cars from Singapore and only allowed to be distributed and for driving within Batam Island.
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