Day 171-173 Fish, fish heads + bloody fish heads!
Trip Start
Aug 01, 2010
1
66
76
Trip End
Feb 14, 2011
Batam, Riau, Indonesia
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Up bright and early we packed our bags ready to leave Singapore via a ferry over to the island of Batam, which is where you can then catch a ferry across the open seas to Indonesia and our destination Jakarta. We left some of our group behind in Singapore who would be joining us in a few days, as they had decided to fly to Jakarta or Bali. Amelia our unofficial tour leader, had received some worrying news from home so had decided to stay put for a while in case she needed to catch a flight home, which would be much more easier from Singapore than in Indonesia. We hugged and waved goodbye, before heading off for a tube station were we would travel to the ferry port.
The ferry port weirdly was located within a shopping mall, and we passed through the security checks fine and proceeded onto a 'Penguin' catamaran. We were stamped out of Singapore and then had an hours journey across the waters to Batam, which is officially a part of Indonesia, we paid a $25 entrance fee and a nice shiny visa was stuck into our passports, which are starting to look well-travelled now with the amount of stamps accumulated. Outside of the ferry port we waited for just over an hour, while Rachel bought our ‘Big’ ferry tickets for the next day, which involved a 30 hour journey to Jakarta. Once the tickets were bought we climbed into a taxi and travelled 45 mins away to a hotel that would have looked more at home in central Baghdad! Burnt out cars, fire bombed fronted pubs and scrappy bins and chickens kept outside, we felt like we had travelled back in time after leaving the super swanky Singapore behind. Hotel 99 was the place for the night and we dumped our bags into the most depressing room of the trip so far. A windowless room with moldy A/C which felt like you would catch legionnaires from it rather than cool down. I could probably list Hotel 99 reasons as why not to stay there! But for one night we thought we were ok and took to watching the ‘Lotus Macau’ channel on TV which played back to back movies. It was either that or face up to the bomb out streets!
That evening we did venture out to a shopping mall 15 mins down the road and stocked up on supplies for our 30 hour crossing. We had been told that we would be supplied complementary fish head and rice meals throughout the trip. Not really fancying this we stocked up on sandwich supplies and breakfast foods.
That night we watched a movie on our new netbook and hoped that the leaky ceiling, by this time dripping on my leg, wouldn’t drive me to insanity like Chinese water torture during the night.
Day 172
We crossed the road to another hotel to make use of their breakfast services, a buffet complete with toast and noodles. Glad to be in daylight and relatively fresh air, we tried to decide how to spend the day as we wouldn’t be catching a taxi to the ferry until 3pm. After utilizing the free wifi in the hotel across the road, we then settled to watch movies on Lotus Macau. Part way through the movie Tomb Raider we left the room with our bags and made our way to the ferry terminal. Our ship was rather large and looked relatively modern complete with life rafts and boats, which is a bonus. We would be travelling 3rd class unless we paid for an upgrade into 2nd or 1st, which came with cabins. However to do so was an incredibly laborious job and those who did upgrade found themselves been led on a wild goose chase before an exact price was set, which seemed much more inflated than the previous year prices. In 3rd class we found ourselves sharing a 72 person dorm on the bottom deck, right next to where they store the fish heads we would be eating throughout the trip. The beds were lined up in 6 back to back throughout the cabin. Each mattress was in a varying state of decay and mine had bugs jumping off it to start with. After a quick clean and some layering was put down to stem the flow of bugs, we settled down for the long wait before we departed.
Exploring the ship we found no shops open, not until the ship departed anyway, and we also found out that to eat in the 2nd class dining room or buy anything there we had to show tickets, regardless of how much money we had. This meant that our meal options was one choice = FISH HEAD and rice, mmm!
A couple hours wait later we finally set off and we went to sit on the top deck where Max taught me how to play chess. We had a game lasting an hour and a half so I must have presented some sort of a challenge in the end, or so I hope? After this we went back down into the 72 person cabin and immediately noticed a lot of eyes watching us! We were a great curiosity for the locals who thought their entertainment for the journey had arrived. Looking around at team tango, it became clear why. Some girls had vest tops on and were bending over unpacking stuff, so that provided some entertainment for the locals peering at boobies. The rest were either sat playing games on iPods, watching movies on laptops or playing loud games of cards. We looked a world apart from the locals who then started to hover next to me as I was typing up a blog entry. Normally I would be offended if somebody stood behind you and watched you type. But most of these people can’t read English and they don’t know Western etiquettes when it comes to reading over your shoulder, they were just really curious. In fact one guy asked me in broken English if I was using the internet, I said that I wasn’t and he couldn‘t understand why I was typing. I showed him how to use Word, by clicking on the icons and it became clear that he only ever used the PC for the internet and didn’t understand that programs existed on a PC that allowed you to do other things.
That evening we picked around our rice and fish head, watched the Christmas special of Top Gear, which made us realize how far we had come through Turkey and Iran and the dangers we could have faced. We crossed the equator at around 11.30pm and many of the group through coins into the ocean for good luck.
Day 173
We were rudely awoken at 5am with a very loud ‘call to prayer’ over the tannoy which happened to be right above Max’s head! This lasted a good ten minutes before the captain kept talking every ten minutes giving us updates in Indonesian so we were none the wiser! By 8am we’d had enough, we’d also tried the breakfast which was served from 6am. Guess what it was….
The day passed really slowly with lots of blogging been done by me, watching the islands of Sumatra and smaller islands pass by and eating all of our supplies. Max was challenged to game of chess by one of the locals who had taken an interest in us. He had already beaten 3 of our lads, one in a classic 4 move strategy. Max was considered the UKTOOZ trump card, so the lads sent him in to beat him. However Max seemed a little overwhelmed by the speed at which this guy was playing. It was if he could see what was happening far faster than normal. Needless to say Max was beaten, but the guy shook his hand and an appreciation of the game passed back and forth.
Eventually, 30 hours later, we arrived in Jakarta and climb into taxis which transported us to our hostel, it was a long drive and by 7pm we went on the search for food. We had some large beers and some dinner before hitting the sack after a very boring day.
