It is touted as a 5-star resort close to Singapore, so I guess we were intrigued into booking a few days stay at the Montigo Resort and Spa in Batam, Indonesia.
Batam is an island in Indonesia 40 minutes by ferry from Singapore. Two terminals gets you there - Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal (TMFT) and Harbourfront Ferry Terminal. Because we were going to Montigo, we were advised to but the ferry tickets from BatamFast and they only operate from TMFT to Nongsapura Ferry Terminal in Batam. The resort is 5 minutes from the ferry terminal.
The resort bus gets you to the resort and the view from the check-in is quite refreshing. Haze aside, you can see MBS from the resort.
The all-villa resort is built on a slope and has three types of villas - hill top, hill side and sea front. For this trip, we stayed at the Hill Side villa.
Warm was the day when we checked in but all was forgotten when we walked into the living room - air-conditioned comfort and a view too. Walk out of the living room and you get to the balcony with an attached dipping pool.
The villa is three stories - two bedrooms on the second level and the top is the room garden. The master bedroom is well decorated.
And with an "open" concept bath area.
The second bedroom has two single beds and with their own attached bathroom too.
My only gripe about the villa is the hot corridor way - when you walk between living room and bedroom, the staircase is not air-conditioned. So you walk from the cool comfort to the hot and humid corridor and then back into the cool comfort of the room again. But from the balcony, one gets a rather nice view out to sea. And on a clear day, you get to see the skyline of Singapore CBD especially that of MBS.
As the day got cooler, we walked around the resort to explore a little. First, the walk down to the dining room of Tadd's brought us to the edge of the resort overlooking the jetty. An amazing view from up here looking down there...
The pool by Tadd's is also well designed for comfort. But bring your sun block lotion. No way one can sit in the pool before 5pm.
Walk past Tadd's which is an all-day dining venue, you will be able to see the bar area. Called Tiigo, the bar is only open on the weekend.
And from Tadd's you can also get another view of the property and the jetty down below.
The beach is nothing to crow about. The jetty is still uncompleted but we managed to steal a walk along the jetty.
Here is Gina by the jetty. They were still laying lighting along the jetty and work was still on-going.
Brings back the days of kelong and we love the stroll out to the end of the jetty.
And this is the view of the resort from the jetty.
All too soon it was coming to the end of the day. As we walked back, we couldn't help but enjoy the sun setting.
And the view from our villa.
We took a whole bunch of photos of the sun setting on day 1. And what a great decision it was - second day was all cloudy and no sun set at all! More of that to come in my next post.
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