Monday/Tuesday September 3/4 - Munich - Singapore
We left the Munich airport Hilton around 10am for our 1pm flight to Singapore arriving Tuesday morning at 7am. We took a taxi to our hotel - the JW Marriott in torrential rain - ah! welcome back to Singapore.
We were really hoping for an early check-in (like 8am) as we were both totally whacked. After some hassle at check-in due to confusion over weather my Gold status with Marriott would give us a room upgrade (and hence an early check-in) and Club access we finally got a room - the one we booked. Thank goodness.
We both hit the sack - some time later the duty manager called me and granted us Club access - a lucky break as I finally determined by calling Marriott Rewards that I no longer qualified for this benefit since they merged their program with SPG - adios Marriott for us.
Around 1pm we got up, showered and dressed - had a snack in the lounge and did a waterfront walk before heading back to the room. At 5:30pm we hit the lounge for happy drinks and canapés then hit the sack at 8pm.
Wednesday September 5 - Singapore
We got up around 7:30am and had brekkie in the lounge. We did a major walk around the water front park then had lunch at Harry’s Bar - the best of which was watching some US Open tennis (Nadal vs Thiem). Then we rested and got organised for our very early departure the following morning for Bawah. We had five’es in the lounge then dinner at an Italian restaurant in our hotel complex.
Thursday September 6 - Singapore - Bawah
We left at 7am by limo-taxi for the Singapore ferry terminal where we were met by a Bawah representative who smoothed our way through check-in and exit Singapore formalities - she then accompanied us and 3 other guests on the ferry to Batam where she handed us over to another Bawah representative who smoothed our way through entry-Indonesia formalities - we were then driven to the local airport (which turned out to be a full sized busy airport) - where we caught our seaplane to Bawah - a twin engined otter - a good Canadian aircraft with a Canadian (it seems from his accent) pilot. We landed at Bawah some 80 minutes later around 12:30pm Singapore time (they use Singapore time not Indonesian time which is an hour earlier).
We settled in then had lunch - by this time it had started raining and continued all afternoon - so we really just rested - I went for a facial at 4pm.
Around 7pm we had a pre-dinner drink - the only thing not included here is alcohol which is very expensive so we took it easy. Then it was early to bed.
Friday September 7 - Bawah
We slept in till 9am partly because my phone showed Indonesian time which I had forgotten about making me believe it was only 8am. After brekkie and some relaxing we went for a long snorkel off our beach - the weather was fine and sunny (of course very hot) but the snorkelling was excellent.
We went to the Boathouse for a lazy lunch then back to our villa for some more relaxing.
Our 6pm sunset cruise was cancelled due to “rough” seas - they did not look very rough to us but it was clear that due to the cloud cover there wouldn’t be much of a sunset anyway. Instead we had “happy” hour at the Groper bar - not so “happy” as all adult beverages here are full price.
Later we went to the Boathouse (which is not usually open for dinner) for a beach BBQ - we were not impressed as it was not a select yourself from piping hot grilled delicacies but a bit of all items served on a platter - needless to say not all items were to our liking - and on top of that many were lukewarm.
Saturday September 8 - Bawah
We got up a bit earlier (8am) and had exactly the same brekkie as the previous day (poached egg on avocado toast) then decided to cancel our scheduled beach picnic at Coconut beach - a good choice since a rain squall moved in mid-morning. We did our own off-the-beach snorkel after lunch.
Sunday September 9 - Bawah
It was a fine day and our snorkelling trip went ahead at 10am. It was a private trip - just crew, 2 marine biologists and the dive-master - a very nice lady who spoke excellent English. The snorkelling was really great - we also had a bit of a islands tour.
Later the sunset cruise proceeded - it was pretty good but in spite of Bawah’s upmarket image the only refreshments served were water and a jar of nuts and dried bananas.
Monday September 10-11 - Bawah back to Singapore to Sydney
It was our last day - after packing up we had one final lunch then boarded the sea plane back to Batam then the ferry to the Singapore city terminal. Here the line at immigration was long and slow - we were quite grumpy.
We stayed another night at the JW then took the 10:30am SQ fight back to Sydney - home by 9pm.