– Why Explore Beyond Singapore

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Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain Speaking.

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Welcome aboard Truly Expat Travel, where we're ditching the guidebooks, fastening our seatbelts, and diving into real stories from travellers who have traded the ordinary for the extraordinary, proving the world really is too big to be left upon the table.

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Cabin crew be seated and ready for takeoff. Welcome to the Truly Expat Travel Podcast. I'm your host, Paula, and today I'm going to be talking about Singapore. Well, a different version of Singapore. I know previously I have spoken a whole episode about Singapore, so you can go back and listen to that. But if you're here or if you're going to be in Singapore and you want to do something a little bit different, or you're in Singapore for longer than you'd like to be, today I'm going to talk about some of the close, very close Indonesian islands near Singapore that allow you to either do a day trip or a whole weekend or a whole week to be honest. There's lots of them, but I'm just going to go through three today. Discovery. And a couple of them I've been a few times. So let's get started. My very first trip I'm going to talk about. Weekend, when I say long weekend, three three days is the maximum I I've done when I've stayed there overnight. Now the first one's Patam. And for those who have lived in Singapore for any length of time, Batam is the trip for a girls' trip. A lot of people go over there for a day spa,

– Island #1: Batam — The Spa Escape

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you know. Why? Because generally speaking, it's much more affordable than Singapore. And it also is has a different vibe. They're Tempats and Ang Spa Resort. They pick you up from the ferry pier. And thirdly, you can stay there overnight if you choose to. And you know, for those who've been to Bali, I've been many, many times. It feels like a little sanctuary. And it's also so far removed from what Singapore's like. So if you are into spas, yes, this is the place to go. You can do a three or a six treatment day, half day or full day, and you get to pick everything from massages to facials. Now I've done quite a few of those different things, and I would have to say the massage has always been my favourite. I've done a pedicure, I've done yeah. He has come with me. We stayed there overnight and we did a whole weekend there.

– Batam: Treatments, Lunch & What to Expect

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And what we did was just the three treatments. He did three different massages because he really wasn't interested in any of the other treatments. Oh actually, no, he did two massages, and I I'm not gonna say made him, but I convinced him that to do a facial. And so you can do three massages if you want. You can do a s a Swedish or a Balinese, or there's a whole heap of of different ones. And it's a whole thing. So you you get picked up from the fairy pier. So the fairy pier uh two fairy pier's in batam, but just remember to be picked up at the one just letting them know where where you're going to be picked up. And so they pick you up from the fairy pier. It's a really like it's so simple. And so then they take you to the resort. It's it's so peaceful and then you get to pick your different types of oils, smells, and scents, and pick your spa treatments, and then you can depending if you do the morning or the evening or the afternoon, have lunch there, the lunch is lovely, and then you can have your treatments and then you can go. So that's one option. Option two is you do a whole full day, six six treatments, and you have lunch in between. And then the third option is also you can go over, have a full day of treatments or a morning of treatments, have lunch there, and then go off for the day. You can hire you can do a tour, or you can hire like a if you get a grab driver or something like that, they tend to take you around as well, like a taxi service. They could take you around to some of the sites there. There's a beautiful temple that we went to. There is shopping, uh, if shopping is your thing. It's not the type of malls that you would see in Singapore or other places in Indonesia not so much Indonesia. I mean Jakarta, I guess. There, you know, you don't get chains there, it's a little more kind of local kind of batic and and stuff like that. There was a mall that we we've been to. I didn't pick anything up, but we did have some lunch and stuff there. There is also the Rainbow Bridge, there is also, you know, movie theatres and you can, you know, you can spend a whole weekend visiting Batama or you can just go for the day. That's the thing that I liked about it. Now if you stay at the Tempatsanang, uh there are different rooms, and

– Batam: Themed Rooms, Dinner & Golf

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so each room has a theme. One has a Chinese theme, one has a Middle Eastern theme, one has a Thai theme. So when you step into that room, you feel like you're in that country. There one is a Malaysian theme, and it was yeah, it was really lovely actually. And then we went and had so what we did do that that particular we stayed that we stayed there, we actually had dinner there, and we had like I'm not gonna say yeah, it was kind of like a digger station, but each menu well not really, it was just like courses, and so each course came from a different country. So you visited, you know, your entree was from Indonesia and your appetizer was from Malaysia and your main course was from I think was there was an Australian one in there, the dish in there, there was a Chinese, there was Thai, there was a whole lot of them, and it was really interesting actually. So we got to go through all the notions. It's not it's not super cheap, like like Indonesian it can be, but it's not overly pricey. You wouldn't I mean it's so much more affordable than it was would be in Singapore if you did the same thing. So that's bizarre. I I do like the fact that you have you you know now now there's so many other places that offer the same kind of service. I've not been to any other, so I can't compare, but I have heard that some of you know some friends of mine have been to other places really have enjoyed it. The other thing you can do there, you can actually play golf as well. There's a golf course right by. And if you know anything about golf in Singapore, it's expensive. And so a lot of people will go there just to play golf for the day as well as an option, or you can stay there like I we did, and uh you can do do that. Now, alcohol is probably the same price as in Singapore, so check the the menu first. For those who don't know, Singapore is quite expensive for alcohol, they do have quite a hefty tax on there, and so you'll find that even though it's Indonesia and it's affordable, it is expensive for alcohol because it is a dry country, generally speaking. It is very safe for solo female travelers, so that's also if you want to get away just on your own, yep, can do that as well. I felt

– Island #2: Bintan — The Resort Island

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so safe, but also it's really cool for a girls' weekend or just a girls' day, I guess you could say. The second option, which is what most people know about, and that is Bintan. And Bintan is a resort island, I guess that's how you could explain it. Everywhere you go, there's so many resorts, and you go there for the resorts. You don't go there to really explore the island, you go there to enjoy the island and the downtime that you have there. There are much bigger resorts, so you know you've got the newly well we went as we went there and it used to be called the Bintan Lagoon Resort, which is one of the oldest but the biggest resorts and very close to the ferry pier. Now that's been remodelled to Moven Peak, which I don't know what it's like there. It's updated, so I'm guessing it's probably pretty good, but I cannot tell you, so I don't really know. We just recently went to one that was a Marriott owned, it was a boutique hotel, which was right in front. So you've got the beaches obviously, because you're on an island, but we stayed right next door to well not next door on the biggest lagoon, man-made lagoon in the southern hemisphere. So massive lagoon that allowed you to do water lots of water sports, excuse me. And if you've got children, that is perfect, right? Because you can entertain them all day. There was like a water slide down one end, there was ca kayaking, there we sat and just watched. There was like a wakeboarding, what else did I see there? Lots of little tube, you know, those tubes that you can float out on. I was boring, I just swam. There was oh, there was fireworks also randomly overnight. Next door to what so so what we stayed in was more like a glamping. So you've got these beautiful it's not, it's definitely not a campsite, a beautiful tent. But inside that tent is a beautiful air-conditioned hotel room, I guess. And then you have an outdoor sp shower, which it was really, really pretty, actually. And then you had next door to that. So you we had breakfast and stuff there, but right next door to that, you also have these teepees there, which is a different hotel

– Bintan: Glamping, Lagoon & Family Fun

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that is walking distance, so we went and had lunch there. But the teepees looked really cute. I looked in I didn't look inside, but looked online and they looked really cool as well. So, but that was must have had some sort of function there because it was completely booked out when we tried to book there. So, so there's some of the pros about the Bintan is that you've got everything from jet skis to AT TVs, you've got multiple cuisines, you know, you have golf course, so lots of people do go over there to just play golf. My husband has done that. You've got generally you can switch off and just really enjoy your time there. Unfortunately, some of the the cons is that you know the it is a busy, busy place. So you do have you also have all inclusive big chains like uh so that why can I not think of the name of that? It's just completely evaporated from my brain. But yeah, so you can go to big, big resorts, there's Marriott's there, or there's little tiny boutiques that you know, so it's there for every budget, which I guess is where I'm I'm getting at. So you can do a day thing, you can go over there for the day. There is some great restaurants that you can you can go to. There is also sorry, you you can start that again. You can go to so there's there's big resorts and then there's small, tiny little hotel resorts. So it's for all different budgets, which is what I love about Bintan. Now there is and also Bintan is good for couples, solo travelers, it's safe. I felt safe. Uh they will pick you up from the ferry pier and take you to wherever it is that you want to go to. Club Med, sorry, that's just popped up into my head. Club Med was what I was trying to think of. Excuse my uh middle-aged brain at the moment, it's not doing too well. So yeah, the best time really there to to travel there is probably March to October, and that's because it's um you know, we have rainy season and you don't want to uh get to a place which we have before where it's low tide and you can't do much when it's low tide, and at least when it's high tide, you've got some swimming options and things like that, which is gets me to the next place that I'm gonna talk about. And the good thing about Bintan is it's great for couples, solo travellers, budget travellers, luxury travellers, it's good for families, you know, so

– Island #3: Nikoi Island — The Hidden Gem

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anyone really can go to Bintan for one day for a whole week, and there's stuff to do. So it ticks everyone's boxes, if if you know what I mean. And if you want to spend a week in Singapore and then spend two days over in Bintan, you can also do that as well, which is which is fine. My third one is going to be Nicoy Island, and for those who know who have ever been to Nikoi Island or have heard about it, it is a resort on just one island, and you have to go through Bintan to get there. So the downfall is that you get to Bentan, then you do like a I feel like it was like an hour. It could be a lot less than that, drive to get to the ferry pier, private ferry pier, to get your boat over to Nicoi. So it is a little bit further away, a little bit longer to get to, but man is it a beautiful island and there's so much to do in such a small little place. It's not like Bintan where you're a thousand things to do. It is definitely heavily c catered for families though, so that's something that you need to take into consideration. I went with a friend, so it is doable, but it is where a lot of expats go and it is an expat run, so that the the owners are expats, so they know what we want, or we need or we we like as foreigners. The private island is actually eco-conscious, so it was developed in 2007, so it's you know, it's got some some years under its belt. The journey, yeah, so like I said, the journey is one hour by ferry, and then Bintown Triver can't transfer. Okay, it's only 20 minutes. I just looked it up, and then there's a speedboat too, it felt like 40 minutes. So the travel is kind of can be the experience as well, because the the speedboat is a lot of fun. There are only 15 houses or bungalows or tree houses, I guess, on the whole beach island, which is very cool. There are some for couples. We were in a tree house that you could fit quite a few people in because my friend was in so we had like two on the same kind of premise, premises, and you know, we had we were in two different rooms, so we had

– Nikoi: Activities, Food & Beach Campfires

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with a balcony overlooking, which was beautiful, and underneath where we were. So if you want to know any more about it, I've written a whole article and there's heaps of social media posts that I had about it as well. There is the casual dining restaurant, and then there's one that's a little bit nicer, not nicer, a little just different, different foods. So there you also have a pool area on one side. You've got a beach on the main beach, I guess, where they do most of their activities. So we went, you can you know, you can go ziplining, windsurfing, kayaking, stand-up paddling. We decided and snorkeling, we decided to do some little bit of snorkeling. We also decided to paddle all like kayak all the way around the island, which was a lot of fun. And it wasn't that hard, and you know, so we did that, we had a lot of fun. Uh alcohol is not included, so you will have to pay pay for that. And as as any other Indonesian place it is a little bit more pricey, so you can you you can have a Western breakfast or you can have a Indonesian breakfast, local breakfast, and they're in two different areas, those two different restaurants. You can also have the pizza at the Western restaurant, or you can have Indonesian food for dinner at so we tried both and loved both. And you know, we dressed up a little bit more, not too dressy, but for the the Western style, and had a couple cocktails, and that was lovely. So then there's a pool there, so we tried the pool there, but we also swam in the ocean. So that was lovely. That was actually really lovely. The one thing I do like about it, if you do have children, it does really cater for kids. It's got a kids club there, and in the kids' club they have nightly campfires. That's not just for kids, it's for us too, which we participated in, where you can roast your marshmallows on the beach, which was lovely. Yeah. So if you are interested in any of those places, I have do have more details on my on in the show notes that will link to my website so that you can get a whole lot of more information that I've probably forgotten to include in this episode. It is there are other options. You can go to Malaysia and do the same thing. There's some islands there or there's some coastal places, and I can talk about those on another episode. But for now I thought those few Indonesian

– Final Thoughts & Wrap Up

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islands, there's a few more you can you can look them up. But sometimes in Singapore, if you're spending a lot more time there, or you've been there quite a few times, like I mentioned, this is a really great alternative. You know, we spent in Bintan, we did one year from the the period between Christmas and New Year's. So we didn't spend Christmas there or New Year's there, but we spent those few days in between. It was perfect little escape from Singapore. And we really got to enjoy some downtime as a family, you know, because where we stayed had like a obviously it had a golf course, it had a putt-park green, it had like a waterslide, pool area, like pool game, like game area, you know, tippingaki restaurant, it had heaps of things to do that and just chill. You know, sometimes you need those vacations that are just about chilling and doesn't have to necessarily be about exploring. Anyway, that was my take on my three islands that I would choose and that I have chosen in the past. So yeah. If if you like this episode, please give it a thumbs up. Come and subscribe so you never miss an episode moving forward. If you leave us a review, I'm really grateful. It just allows people to find this podcast and it gets gets it out there a little bit for me. So and for you to ensure that these episodes keep coming for you. So until next time, thank you for listening to the Truly Expat Travel Podcast and safe travels, and I'll see you next week.