The resort island of Batam belongs to Indonesia, just an hour south of Singapore’s shores by ferry. It’s one of the popular weekend getaway destinations for the Singapore populous I suppose, promising a quiet seaside respite from the concrete jungle, cheap duty-free shopping, and relaxing massages. Scott and I spent days researching on which island we wanted to visit (contenders being Bintan, Bali, Phuket)… or should I say, I spent multiple days fretting over our travel plans until he put a stop to it by basically saying, alright we’re booking this hotel, now let us not worry about it until we get to it. And so it was that we booked a 4D3N stay at Harris Resort Waterfront via Expedia for a grand total of SGD $203 inclusive of taxes. Pretty worth it if I must say so myself. There were, of course cheaper deals in the area, but we were looking for a quiet place to vegetate and so this seemed the best fit.
I also procured our ferry transportation from Singapore to Batam through Groupon for a slightly discounted price of SGD $35 per person for a 2-way journey through Pacific Ferry. Buying from Groupon tends to stress me out, since there’s a lot of terms and conditions tacked on to the discounted prices. But the only thing that I had to worry about was to send an email to Pacific Ferry with my requested departure date and time from Singapore. The office assured me that I’d be able to book my return date and timing at their branch at the ferry terminal in Batam, which we did immediately upon entry since we knew how many days we wanted to stay for.
Saw a pretty sight of the skies split into two on our journey to Batam – it was raining on the right side in the distance.It was raining in Batam, and a significant portion of the journey saw us travel through incredibly flooded roads. Here, the waters went as high up as the curb – Scott and I even felt the rushing waters through the cab floor at one point! Our cab driver had to take a few longer routes to escape the worse-off portions of the roads.We arrived at Harris Waterfront Resort. We were served chilled refreshing drinks as we filled up the necessary forms at the check-in counter. I was pretty proud of myself for discerning the concoction of lemongrass and ginger.We got a pretty spacious corner room.Complimentary stuff. They refilled the bottles of water every day, which was very much appreciated. We also made sure to tip the guy who serviced our rooms to spick and span conditions, especially since we’d always leave our room after housekeeping at noon.Toiletries were also provided, and can I just say that their jasmine-scented shampoo and body wash smell heavenly.Orange seems to be the theme of this chain of hotels, further accented by the flip-flops provided.View of the pool from our balcony.There was a little island in the middle of the pool (which ran as deep as 2 meters), which was connected by a cute little bridge. Given the non-peak period, we had all the space for ourselves. Lucky!We had requested for a late checkout at Harris Waterfront Resort for an additional 200,000 IDR (SGD 20) when we first arrived, expecting our lazy bums to rouse past noon on the last day, same as always. We visited the sunken pool bar one last time for our last day, snagging it for ourselves since most hotel guests had presumably already left in the morning. It was a good time for some uninterrupted digital memories.The resident tortoise sunbathing.Lightly-toasted bread was served complimentary with every meal at the resort. We were so drawn to them that we requested for more slices whenever we dined at their cafe because the bread was just too delicious. The friendly waitstaff even went along with our request for a small plate of olive oil for us to dip our yummy bread in. They must have thought that we were crazy gorging on bread like so for the four days that we were there.We absolutely loved their wood-fired pizza too, and had that every day during our stay.
