To Batam and Back

I didn't bring the camera when we went to Batam, Indonesia on Sunday. Sister doesn't have one of those nifty camera phones while I don't even own a hand-phone. Brother was at work or we'd have made him slog and carry one of his heavy cameras up and down the hills of Batam. I'll confess here. I was less than enthusiastic about visiting another country for a single day trip. Batam is just 40 minutes away from Singapore by ferry and I don't like travelling to neighbouring countries. Boring, you know.

I made a mistake - naturally. I'm an idiot. It was beautiful. Hills and lakes and everything. Trees and bushes. Living in a cityscape is awful, maudlin. I hardly travel. Mother tells us daughters that we can travel with our husbands when we get married. Right. So how did we end up in Batam? One of our many uncles told our parents about a Hindu temple there. Off we went. Mother only likes temples it seems. Father is too lazy to care about other countries. I guess he wanted to indulge his wife for a change. I thought Batam wouldn't be interesting at all. I mean, it's not exactly Cambodia.

"Leave the camera! It's too heavy," said I. "Ack! Argh! Idiot! Ok, I won't carry it. It's too heavy," said Sister.

I'm a fool.

The temple is gorgeous. It's maintained by Balinese Hindus. A dragon coiled around the base of the structure, a fearsome Garuda stood guard at the top of the gopuram at the other end. Unfortunately, it was closed for repairs. There is another sanctum next door. Traditionally Hindu, with priests translocated from India to manage it.

The priests - there were 2 - stood at the entrance and welcomed us very graciously. They were familiar with our uncle for he'd been there before. Anyway, all round introductions, smiles, etc.. All I cared for was the serene environment. I was busy blabbing adjectives like a bloody tourist. But those priests were unflagging in their hunger for conversation. There aren't very many Indians in Indonesia. I understand how they must have felt to be suddenly inundated with a family of Indians in that 'lonely' place. When Sister and I settled down to the task of creating lamps out of lemons - a practice we have, to light lamps made out of lemons, as offerings to the Gods - the more loquacious priest came over and sat next to me, inquiring if we spoke Tamil. Uh. Thank goodness Mother intervened. Somehow she steered the conversation away from us and got him jabbering away about the temple grounds and donations instead. He was just too friendly. Sister and I could only shudder.

We spent close to an hour and a half there. Perhaps we'll visit again. I hope we do, notwithstanding the noisy priest.

We had lunch at a rusticky sort of restaurant that was right next door. The service was certainly not up to any standards. Sure the waitresses were dolled up in traditional garb but they kept forgetting our orders. My 'special fried rice' was served like 30 minutes later. The food itself was quite horrid. It resembled an oil slick. And there was that gigantic Carpenter bee buzzing about. Thank God it didn't have the wits to fly over the glass barrier. -_-

We had 2 hours left before heading out so we did the usual shopping. Sister and I enthused over pretty Wayang Kulit puppets. A little establishment had a lovely range of such puppets. We practically parked ourselves there and enthused further.

"This is Rama and Sita. A universal symbol of true love," said a man at my side. He was carrying an infant in his arms and smiled all the time. I thought he was a friendly fellow customer. Actually he was the proprietor. Sister and I nodded. We did have prior knowledge of Wayang Kulit and the Ramayana. We were so looking forward to taking Rama and Sita home. The man said a little more about the true love bit. I do think he was repeating himself... But he was pretty cute. Go on, I thought. Tell me more.

We purchased the puppets and a Kodomo Dragon craft thingy after our uncle artfully haggled over the price and somehow gave him the slip. But he was smiling still, friendly till the end.

The ferry rocked back and forth dangerously on the way back home. Mother and I panicked quite a bit. To make matters worse, the idiots were playing disaster movies back to back. First The Day After Tomorrow then Flightplan. What was that for!? I simply hate travelling over water. I can't swim, I have a phobia of water. Blame my father. He used to take us to the beach when we were young and took a wicked delight in drowning us. What kind of a father does that to his kids? Anyway, it was pretty bad. What was supposed to be a 45 minutes trip extended to an hour and a half of gripping Mother's hand and praying to God for mercy. Sister displayed such unwonted sangfroid that I was really taken aback. (She usually gets sick on the plane and when she was young, even on the bus.) She was sleeping while I sat about worrying. The funny thing was, when we were getting off the ferry, I saw an unused life jacket, abandoned at a seat. I took comfort from the knowledge that there was a bigger coward than me after all.

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