Batam is an island in Indonesia only a ferry ride away from Singapore. We woke at 7am on Saturday, and hit the water in Batam Cable Ski at 10:30am.
Being in Indonesia, everything is much more relaxed than Singapore. Shortly after starting one the cable crew had to rewind the cable a few meters - but there is no reverse gear. So he climbs up, no harness, wearing thongs and treadmills the motor to rewind the cable.
Knee boarding was a good start. Both of us could do a few laps no worries. The wakeboard proved a little more difficult. Liz decided not to try for fear of face planting and hurting her neck. I tried and failed numerous times. Then I had a try on Greg’s board. Amazingly more stable. I stayed up, made the first three corners with grace and style, then got a bit wobbly on some small ripples and that was it.
Some of the locals were crazy good. They were getting massive air time, flips, rolls, anything with no jumps and no wake, just using the pull of the cable around the corners. Awesome to watch. Another guy, Aussie local, was carving it up on a knee board making great sheets of water spray up at every turn.
Thanks to Greg and Stacey for inviting us along. Definitely be going back again for this one.
$105 SGD includes ferry transfers, lunch and as much wakeboarding as you can handle. Massage $20. Beers $3.
Macca came to visit us in between her travels in Africa climbing Mt Meru, in Borneo climbing Mt Kinabalu and in Thailand staying at dodgy sex hotels! (she says it was unavoidable… she says).
Spent the day showing Macca around Singapore - Fuk Tak temple, Buddha tooth relic temple, Maxwell hawker centre… Macca couldn’t get enough of the apple/carrot/ginger juice for only $2. She is a ginger junkie!
So if you like what you see here, you too should think about coming to visit us! We are always happy to have visitors. Just give us a bit of notice, as there is a roster that must be checked availability (and if we are even in town at the time!).
Check out the statue that is a dragon with a turtle shell, with the world on top - DiscWorld much?!?!
Spent NYE around Kuching and Santubong in Sarawak, Borneo. We went with the intention of seeing orang utans but didn’t get to it this time. Instead we lazed about by the pool at the resort with a great big beautiful backdrop of Mt Santubong. Next time we will also have to climb the mountain - takes about 6 hours we think. This time round, we just did a couple of 2 hour walks through the jungle at the base. Saw some nice waterfalls and excellent trees and vines. We saw a small monkey, shortly followed by a larger monkey that jumped to the ground and started to charge at us from about 10 metres away. My first instinct was to step forward waving my arms and roar at it with my best impression of a lion. Liz picked up some sticks and followed suit with the roars and waving. The monkey pulled up about 5 metres away and retreated to the trees. Then we could no longer see them but just hear them swishing from tree to tree. We started to freak out a little that they would jump down on top of us, so we both took sticks and walked quickly along the track about 100m to where it opened out onto a beach. Shaking a bit from the experience we sat down to rest and were quickly distracted by a group of sea otters swimming just off shore and eating fish. Well worth another visit.
Tom is staying at the Hon Trem Resort Spa in Vietnam while working on site there for a cement factory project. Long hours on site and away from his beautiful wife for two weeks! But with the fresh plentiful seafood and pretty nice scenery it isn’t so bad.
Liz has been living it up, going out to expat parties and dinners with friends in Singapore… and missing her handsome husband so so so much!!
