Asian Adventure - Part 10 - Batam, Indonesia

After two lovely days in what felt like a modern, clean and safe city I packed my bags and took the ferry to the Indonesian island of Batam. My host Sabrina collected me from the ferry terminal on her scooter and took me to their traditionally Indonesian house to introduce me to her brothers that she lived with.
Sabrina ran an English tutorial centre...

...so in the morning we went to meet some of the students and teachers:

After lunch we went to see the largest mosque in Batam:

...and I received my official welcome:

Later in the evening we went to meet a class of students who I talked to about England:

The next we went to meet Sabrina's old English lecturer, her daughter and daughter's friend who were taking me sightseeing while Sabrina was working. A series of bridges have been built connecting a number of islands to Batam. The first one is famous in the area:

After driving through a number of the islands we came to the Vietnamese refugee camp and their temple:

And finally we took a strole along the beach:

I think going to Batam gave me a good picture of the real Indonesia, without the  tourist flare of some of the other well known islands. I'm glad I stayed with Sabrina and meeting the students was the highlight of the trip. The next morning I set sail back to Singapore to take a bus to KL.