~ Past Holiday Experiences 4 - Batam Mar 2005 ~

Date: 19th March - 20th March 2005
Location: Batam

I must say I did not have much memories of the exact places we have been for this particular trip. Thanks to the many photos we took and Goggle, I managed to trace back some of them. :)

Day 1: A few families joined this trip and we hopped on the tour bus which came early and took us to the ferry terminal to Batam.

Denver was 2+ years and I believe it was his very first boat ride. ^_^

Our first stop is Kwan Yin Temple. It has a big statue of Kwan Yin and a very nice scenic view of the sea. There is also a turtle pool where Denver was amazed and enjoys watching them.

Then we headed towards another buddist temple (Can't recall the name)

Finally, we have our lunch at Golden Prawn 933 followed by a local cultural show.

Our last stop for today is "Tua Pek Kong" temple. There are many figurines there and we took some photos and have our prayers too. Before going back to the hotel, we stopped by a shop to purchase cheaper polo ralph shirts and went to a shopping mall for our dinner.

Day 2: After a good rest at Batam View Hotel (http://www.batamview.com/), we had our breakfast and tour around the hotel premises. It has a beach front and a nice pool too.

We took the kids for a swim in the pool and there is a clown who came by and played a little game with the children. ^_^

We checked out of the hotel and continued the rest of our tour with the bus driving us around the islands. One of the most creepy part is visiting Galang - Memory of a Past Tragedy. As many unfortunate and terrible things have happened here before, it was said to be haunted. http://www.spi.com.sg/haunted/galang/main.htm. To avoid having nightmares and me not being very daring myself, I stayed in the bus while Hubby and some others went down to take some pictures nearby.

Before heading back to Singapore, we went to the Barelang Bridge. According to wiki, it is a chain of 6 bridges of various types that connect the islands of Batam, Rempang, and Galang, giving the system its name. The smaller islands of Tonton, Nipah, and Setotok (considered as parts of the Batam Island chain itself) connect Batam and Rempang. The bridge is an icon of the local area and is a popular tourism site. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barelang_Bridge)

This marks the end of our short 2 days 1 night Batam tour! ^_^