A Weird Feeling

So last weekend I went over to Batam, Indonesia for the day. Batam is a 45 minute ferry ride from Singapore, so a lot of people go to the resort areas, but we were scheduled for a one day tour. Batam is an island, smaller than Singapore, but has a population of 1 million.
I really wasn't sure what to expect from the tour... judging from the itinerary, it seemed like we would be making mostly tourist-centered stops instead of experiencing the "real" Batam. I was right, but in the end, I was a little grateful for that.
Now Indonesia is a Muslim country, and some parts are very strict. Batam, along with other popular tourist locations, are considerably less strict. People don't want to vacation all the time when they have to cover their faces and what not. Still, I wasn't sure what the experience would be like. There were a lot of people dressed in the conservative Muslim style, but no more than you see in Singapore, so that wasn't really too different. The city's public decorations were, however, designed to celebrate Ramadan, so that was interesting to see. It also gave away the fact that we weren't spending time in local areas...everywhere we went, people were eating all day long. Instant give away during Ramadan, but the area is widely traveled by many in Asia and it is hard to tell that they aren't local for someone like me.
Indonesia is also known for being less safe than Singapore. Our guide explained to us that during Ramadan, the thievery was actually worse. Apparently if you are Muslim here, which most of the people are, then you have to celebrate with everyone else (especially with end of Ramadan drawing near), but many of the people don't have the money to do that... hence the pickpockets and snatchers. We didn't really have any problems with that, but then again, like I said, we also didn't spend too much time around the locals.
Okay, okay the tour....
We were picked up in a bus outside the port for our day tour. There were about 10 other people in our group. At first we just assumed the group was  made up of smaller groups of twos and threes, but it soon became apparent that our tour was split into only two divisions... us and them. I guess they were an extended family or something, but I'm not really sure.
We drove for about 40 minutes or so from the ferry area to get to where we were doing most of our sightseeing, and it was then that we got the first glimpse of the local's lifestyle.

Looking at the run-down houses and shops, I began to feel wary of how this tour would be. I did NOT want to get off the bus on some local street corner and goggle, like the tourist that we were, at the local life. I would definitely have not felt safe there, either.
To the left is an up close picture of a row of houses, below I have enlarged another of my pictures. If you look closely, you can see behind the car that there are rows and rows packed full of houses and shops just like these, or in worse condition. It was hard to get a good picture to show you just how large these areas are, so this pic will have to suffice.

Anyway, the first stop on the tour was to this "Golden Garden" or something. They had little houses set up all around the garden (they stood right below shoulder height). They were all depicting the different styles of housing throughout Indonesia. Some were simple stilt houses, others were more fortress-looking, and one design had skulls painted on the sides. There were also animal statues, but I think the animals in Malaysia must be under-fed, because all of the statues were really skinny.
Next stop: a local goods store. There were some local foods here, as well as some local clothing and other locally-made trinkets. Some of these were interesting to see, even if I would never in my life buy them... wooden statues of women committing very private acts, husband and wife twined together in interesting ways... not something I am going to put on my bookshelf, thank you.
After that, lunch! Lunch was more or less what I had expected. A large round table (the two halves of our group got separate tables) with about six dishes to share. There were vegetables, calamari, shrimp (not peeled as usual) crab (though there was no tool to help you crack the shell, so we didn't eat very much of it), fish in a sweet sauce, soup with fish balls and, of course, rice.

Next, we watched a "Cultural Show." I use quotations because it was a little lacking, though an interestingly spent 8 minutes, nonetheless. They danced a little in the Java (pic left) and Bali (pic below) fashion, and then we watched this guy peel a coconut husk off using only his teeth (pic farther below), saw the same man eat burning charcoal (he didn't swallow the charcoal, but he stuck it while it was still flaming into his mouth), and another guy eat glass then jump through a burning hoop.

I would put the video up, but it website won't let me for some reason...you'll just have to do with these pics instead.

Also, I feel I should mention that our guide insisted that everything we saw was authentic, and that the men had entered a spiritual trance of sorts in order to accomplish these tasks. I will let you decide.

After our cultural experience, we were taken to a Chinese Temple. Interestingly, it was very different from the Chinese Temples we saw in China. Those were magestic and mysterious looking with their large golden-colored or jade statues, accompanied with the rich red banners and decorations. They practically screamed "hey, we've been here for hundreds of years being worshiped and decorated. We are awesome." Here, the temple was more "chinese themed" if you get my drift. Here on the right I have a picture of the roof with all of it's dragons. Surrounding the temple area, there were a lot of other  statues as well.

On the left I have one of the statues from the garden area. There was also a Buddha and one of those lucky frogs.
For our next stop, we were taken to another local goods store, though this one had more things that we actually might want to buy. They had tourist goods, like key chains and decorative items for  presents, but they also had more locally made clothing and shoes and such. I got one of those clutch purses for five sing dollars, and my mom bought a bracelet. After, we crossed the street (more dangerous than it sounds, trust me!) and headed into a factory outlet shop.

Remember when I told you that Batam is one of the cheap laborers types of places?...well this shop had all the clothing brands that invested in said workers. They had a lot of clothes here you could buy, but we didn't get any.
Whats next? A three hour stop at a mall. The mall was packed with vendors. We made a quick stop in the grocery store to see what kinds of goodies they had there (though dad was mainly looking for some kind  of ant killer  they don't sell in Singapore), and then I spent most of the time with my mom in one of the department stores. We each bought a pair of shoes and I also bought a purse.
Oh! That reminds me... the money here is called Rupiah. 1 USD = 8,528 IDR or 1 SGD = 7,073 IDR. At the beginning of our trip, my dad exchanged our money, then handed me 1.2 million IDR.... boy did I feel rich! Anyway, while things were slightly cheaper in Batam, there is so much tourist shopping, that prices are roughly the same as you would find in Singapore.
Back to the mall... after shopping around, we ate at a pizza place... slightly high end, apparently, though it cost us the equivalent of 30 SGD for all four of us to eat there. Afterwards, we were picked up by our bus again and taken back to the ferry for our ride back to Singapore.
So that was Batam. Nowhere we went was incredibly local, but I still can't decide if that was a good or bad thing. Oh well. As far as first impressions, my trip to Batam does not inspire me to try out other sections of Indonesia, but I know the major cities are different from this small island area, so I won't let it stop me.
Oh!... one more thing... from the time we left with our bus group, to the time we returned to the ferry in our bus, we were pretty much the only four Caucasians around. Definitely a weird feeling.