3D2N stay at Gideon Hotel (Batam) - DAY 1

By renee - January 03, 2014

An impromptu decision to go for a short getaway to batam as boyfriend haven't been there before. Before that, we searched around and finally decided to purchase from DEAL.com.sg 3D2N stay at Gideon Hotel for the price of $75 per person inclusive of tour, Indonesia buffet lunch and high tea without massage. Other than this price, we had to pay around $27 for the Departure fee and fuel surcharge as well as batam terminal fee.

Our ferry timing was 0845am and we had to arrive 90 minutes before to collect the boarding pass from the counter. We took a cab and reached at about 630am and thus we decided to have our breakfast first at McDonald's.

My morning look.

We took Pacific Ferry and will be alighting at Sekupang.

Our Tour Stickers to be recongised by our tourguide over at Sekupang.

Boyfriend always like to hide his face behind me so that his face will look smaller. UNFAIR RIGHT~

It took about 45minutes to reach the destination but halfway through I fall alsleep as I only slept for 30minutes the day before zzz.Finally we reached the destination. Going through the immigration at Batam was pretty fast maybe because we are the first few to arrive.

Our tour guide was pretty friendly funny ~

First stop - Chocolate Factory

To me, the chocolate over there are quite pricey so boyfriend and me did not even buy a single thing from there :D

10 reasons why you should eat chocolate. HAHAH !

Second stop - Best Layers Cakes

All of us had a short sampling of their kueh Lapis but we bought a kueh made of honey instead as we find it quite interesting. $22 for the LARGE one.

You can see the prices from here which are way cheaper than Singapore.

Third stop - Polo Ralph Lauren

The designs were outdated and the quality of the shirt was not as good as you think as well.

Fourth stop - Local Product shop

We bought quite a number of snacks home and their corn snack was pretty addictive which costs about SGD2. However, if you are staying in Gideon Hotel, I would recommend you to buy it from those shophouses that only costs about SGD 1.20. 2 packets of prawn crackers, 3 packets of corn snacks, 2 packets of peanuts - SGD 20.

Fifth Stop - Indonesian Buffet Lunch

Finally, it's lunch time. The foods over there are quite average to me.

Sixth Stop - Kuda Lumping (culture show)

Kuda Lumping (culture show) is a dance that uses a fake horse made of bamboo that accompanied with music such as percussion, gongs, kenong at the back.

In addition, the horse dancers also performed on eating glass and peeling the coconut with his teeth which totally amazed me. As he ate the glass-shard, he did not wince in pain at all but he looks pretty enjoying it.

After the show, we gave them RP50,000.

Seventh Stop - Emporium

Emporium is a place that sell souvenir like T-Shirts and watches at wholesale price. They also have lots of faked branded bags like LV, Chanel, Bally and more .