Beautiful, Beautiful Batu Batu

Happy New Year! Now that 2015 is underway, my resolution is to get caught up with my blog. All the birthdays, holidays, and travel the past 2 months put me way behind with my posts, so here we go! Since I left off with Halloween, I’m going to pick up with Thanksgiving:

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love everything about it: being with our family, the meal itself, the concept of taking time to be thankful for what we have (and not having it be commercial in any way)… it just makes me very happy. Thanksgiving this year, however, was not traditional in the least. Aside from the 5 of us, there was not a family member in sight. There was no turkey dinner (though the kids did get a turkey lunch at school the day before Thanksgiving). Aside from me going in to the kids’ school that week and reading a Thanksgiving book to the girls’ classes (as this holiday is a foreign concept to most of the other students and many of the faculty as well), plus the package of Thanksgiving cards that my mom sent, there was nothing to mark the holiday itself, aside from the fact that the kids had 2 days off of school. When we talked about moving to Singapore, I dreaded the thought of Thanksgiving. So, how did we handle it? We went on our first vacation in Asia!

When I read through all the Singapore expat blogs I could find as we considered moving here, I found mention of an island off the coast of Malaysia. The name of the island is Pulau Tengah (“Middle Island”), and the only thing on the island is a resort called Batu Batu. In fact, when people refer to this destination, they simply say that they’re going to Batu Batu. Anyway, I saw pictures and read descriptions of the resort, which I immediately shared with Brad, Kylie, Jenna, & Logan. Batu Batu became something of a rallying cry for us. We decided that if we made the move, we would spend Thanksgiving at Batu Batu. Whenever one of us was upset about the move, another of us would just say, “Batu Batu.” The point was that we were going to do something to take our minds off of missing home, and we felt like this destination would cheer us up.

Shortly after we arrived in Singapore, Brad & I made the reservation. I didn’t want to take any chances that this trip wouldn’t happen over Thanksgiving because we’d promised that we’d do this. Since we don’t have a car, we made arrangements for a minivan and driver to come collect us at 6 a.m. on that Thursday. We used JK Express, recommended by the resort, and it worked out great. With some of the companies, we would have had to switch vehicles at the Malaysian border (which is about 20 minutes away from our condo), but with JK, we didn’t have to. We were told to allow 4 hours to get to Mersing, Johor, Malaysia, but we arrived in 2.5, as traffic that early in the day was very light, and going through customs was a breeze. Because we were so early, we had plenty of time to kill at the Mersing jetty. Our driver, Mr. Jacky, suggested that we get some breakfast at the coffee (“kopi”) house that was right at the jetty. We said goodbye to him and moved our luggage over to a table at the restaurant.

The girls and I decided to locate the rest room, which turned into something of an adventure. We found it, and saw that there was an attendant stationed outside; he didn’t speak much English, but there was another man talking to him right then, and that man explained that there was a fee to use the facilities. We went back to the boys, got some change from Brad, and went back to pay. I’m still not positive what the situation was in the stalls; we determined that we had to go back to the attendant to get toilet paper, but then the toilets didn’t flush- it was all very confusing. We did our best to figure out the system and then hurried back to have some breakfast. Brad and Logan were waiting for us at the table, hanging out with all the stray cats that keep the restaurant patrons company. Ky was excited about this, but Jen & Lo were a bit nervous. I’m not typically a fan of cats, but they turned out to be very sweet animals who just wanted to eat our crumbs and snooze by our feet; Jen & Lo ended up loving them.

We had a traditional Malaysian breakfast of nasi lemak (me) and roti prata (everybody else). Both are very common in Singapore as well, and we’d had roti prata on several occasions prior to this. The kids’ favorite part of this meal was the sweetened iced tea with milk; it was delicious.

From Wikipedia: “Roti prata is a fried flour-based pancake that is cooked over a flat grill. It is usually served with a vegetable or meat based curry and is from Malaysia and Singapore. Prata is also commonly cooked (upon request) with cheese, onion, banana, red bean, chocolate, mushroom or egg. It is listed at number 45 on World’s 50 most delicious foods readers’ poll compiled by CNN Go in 2011.”

From Wikipedia: “Nasi lemak (Jawi: ناسي لمق) is a fragrant rice dish cooked in coconut milk and “pandan” leaf commonly found in Malaysia, where it is considered the national dish…Traditionally, nasi lemak is served with various side dishes, including fresh cucumber slices, small fried anchovies (ikan bilis), roasted peanuts, hard boiled egg, and hot spicy sauce (sambal).”

After finishing our yummy meal and watching the cats some more, we were anxious to figure out how exactly the boat ride was going to work that would get us over to the island. As it turned out, a Batu Batu employee in a blue shirt found us and explained that we could actually get on an earlier boat, which was great. We headed over to it and ended up talking to another family from Singapore whose 2 kids attend the same school as ours; they’ve been in Asia for awhile and provided us with more travel ideas. The boat was soon underway, and 20 minutes later, we’d arrived.

We were immediately greeted by another employee, who walked with us to the restaurant pavilion, while explaining all that we needed to know about the resort. Every employee we passed smiled and said hello; I know they were paid to do so, but I’ve become accustomed to Singapore, where people (regardless of employment) generally do not smile and exchange pleasantries. This was such a welcome change; it felt so much more normal. Anyway, we were presented with a warm wash cloth and a welcome drink; we got to sit and enjoy the view for a few minutes while sipping our beverages. We’d been a bit nervous that we booked this trip during monsoon season, but the weather was gorgeous- warm, sunny, and not nearly as humid as Singapore.

Soon it was time to be shown to our room, which was a villa right on the beach.

A sandy path connects the villas and restaurant pavilion; it was raked frequently to keep it neat. That’s Brad and the kids in the distance.

This was the front of our villa. With all the sand, it was a good thing we had a place to rinse our feet before heading inside, which Jen is doing in this pic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The main room was our bedroom, which had an extra bed for 1 of the kids; additionally, there was a kids’ annex right off the bedroom that had bunk beds for the other 2. (Thus, a nightly rotation was established, as each child needed a turn sleeping on the top bunk. Luckily, we had 3 nights to work with.) There was a large bathroom that was great, aside from some nighttime ant visitors- the price you pay for being right on the beach, I suppose.

Main room of the villa: our bed and 1 of the kids’ beds

Children’s annex

Tub in our big bathroom

Sink area in the bathroom

Shower and toilet area in the bathroom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best part- the back of the villa and access to the South China Sea, just steps from our back porch:

Back porch

Back of the villa

Our backyard

We had Sunrise Beach to ourselves most of the time

Being at Batu Batu was a little like luxury camp. Meals were served during certain windows. We always had the same table, and we could come and go as we pleased. All guests pay a full-board fee ahead of time, so the only additional purchases are beverages. Breakfast was a buffet- nothing out of the ordinary, but definitely sufficient. Lunch and dinner, however, were fantastic. For adults, lunch was a choice of 3 main-course options and 3 dessert options; for dinner, we also had 3 appetizer options. The kids had 1 option of main and dessert at both lunch and dinner, though the staff was very flexible if these options weren’t going to work for your child; we never had to alter anything, but we saw others who did with no problem.

Entering the restaurant pavilion

Our table

Dinner was our favorite meal, for sure; the kids could begin eating at 6 p.m., and then at 7 p.m., they could go watch a movie at the nearby playhouse. Adult dinner began at 7 p.m. So, Brad & I visited with the kids each evening as they ate their meal, and then they went to watch the movie while we enjoyed our meal. We don’t have a babysitter in Singapore, so we caught up on some much-needed date nights!

My Thanksgiving dinner: Indian-style sea bass

Brad’s Thanksgiving dinner: filet with garlic butter

Lime tart & coconut gelato dessert

Just what we needed

 

We spent our days swimming, snorkeling, paddleboarding, and hiking. There are a number of good beaches for swimming, so we tried them all. We usually ended up back at the villa, at our beach, for awhile before heading off to dinner.

Out for a walk

Headed for Long Beach

It wasn’t so much “paddle”-boarding for Jen

Kylie in the distance, heading out to sea

Logan took to this right away

 

All 3 kids, but particularly Logan, enjoyed climbing all the rocks

Ky, Lo, & Brad enjoying the great snorkeling off of Junior Reef Beach

All 3 kids in the infinity-edge pool

We saw this guy one afternoon while heading back to our villa!

The kids in action, hiking around the perimeter of the island

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazingly, from 1977-1981, Tengah Island housed over 100,000 Vietnamese refugees. Given its pristine beauty and small size, this just doesn’t seem possible, though we did see some evidence of prior habitation during our hike around the island. Twenty years later, the island was used on several Survivor-type TV shows. The resort opened in 2012 and is committed to environmentally-friendly practices to preserve its gorgeous natural setting.

Scenic view while hiking

A family shot when we encountered our friends from the boat during our hike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the late afternoon, with dinner approaching, the most amazing thing happens in the villas: turn-down service. This doesn’t just consist of the usual opening-up of the beds; it is a major cleaning of each room, as sand (and lots of it) is an inevitability in such a setting, despite one’s best efforts. They sweep the floors, close the windows, put down the shades, turn on the A/C, turn down the beds, unfurl the mosquito netting around the beds (though we had no issue with mosquitoes in the villa; we only caught a few moths in the netting), turn on a few lights, and just generally make the place look fresh and new. I loved this transformation; it made coming back from dinner so pleasant, as everything was all ready for us.

Before dinner one night

Batu Batu was all that we’d hoped for when we decided it would be just the place for our first Asian vacation. It was convenient, relaxing, and beautiful. We all had a hard time leaving. Perhaps most telling, prior to our trip, one of the kids had asked if we’d go to Batu Batu for Thanksgiving next year as well. Brad had been quick to explain that there are so many places that we’d like to see while we’re living in Asia that it’s unlikely that we’ll be going anywhere twice. However, by the end of our first day at Batu Batu, he was trying to figure out how soon we could go back!