We bought one of those deal vouchers for an overnighter at Harris Batam last year but never got around to using until last weekend. Actually we realized it was about to expire so it was a last minute pack and go thing. We couldn’t even bring the kids because their passports weren’t ready in time.
In any case, this was our first time to Indonesia and we were looking forward to some pool time with a good book and authentic Ayam Penyet.
When we arrived, they upgraded us to a cabana, which turned out to be one of those upgrades you don’t necessarily want for several reasons. For one, there’s no shelter to the cabana and we had to carry our bags in the pouring rain to get to the room. And perhaps more importantly, I had to find out (in a very unpleasant manner) that our upgraded cabana was home to a very territorial lizard.
Again, it had to happen just as I was lathering up my hair in the shower. There was a sudden flash of movement and I found myself face to face with a grey obese lizard who obviously had too much Indonesian cuisine in its bulging tummy. Unlike the lizards back home, this one didn’t even bother to scuttle away and it just sat (lay?) there looking like I was the one bothering it with my hair washing.
Cut to right after the screaming and running, I called the hotel lobby and made them switch us back to a regular room, one without lizards. Which they promptly did (props to the staff) but we still had to pack up all our stuff and lug everything over with my hair still lathered up and foamy.
For the rest of the night, I was checking every corner for lizards and jumping at every sudden movement. Not a good way to spend a holiday.
To be fair, the food and the pool were pretty good but seeing that we could get those easily back home, it’s safe to say that we won’t be returning to Harris anytime soon.
But the real killer was the return journey back to Singapore. It was supposed to be a 45-minute ride straight back but our friendly ferry operator, BatamFast, decided to stop over for half and hour at another ferry terminal without so much as a “hey guys FYI we’ll be making a detour here for 30 minutes so just rock out on the ferry ok.”
Now, I’m sure that while BatamFast is a lot of things, fast is not actually one of them. They may want to consider renaming it so we won’t actually expect it to be fast.
It also doesn’t help that I don’t have a high tolerance for rocky boat rides. I’m ok when the ferry is moving but that stationary bobbing kills me. We couldn’t even get off onto solid ground to wait so we were left there just bobbing away while I had my head between my knees trying not to puke. I hope I’ll never have to spend another 30 minutes of my life feeling that miserable again.
