I had a few hours of free time before flying Garuda, back to Jakarta, after attending a team gathering at a hotel in Batam, several months ago. After dropping off a friend who took an earlier flight at Hang Nadim airport, an acquaintance of another friend took us to Jembatan Barelang, an icon of Batam Island. The bridge connects the islands of Batam, Remang and Galang, and also known as Jembatan Habibie, as an acknowledgement to the person who gave birth on it.

Batam’s roads were well maintained and there were plenty of open land area along the way to Barelang Bridge. Batam was developed under Soeharto and Habibie era to take benefit of its strategic location which is quite near to Malaka Strait and just about 20 km from Singapore's south coast.

The view from Jembatan Barelang was awesome, that made me stood still enjoying the scenery for quite sometime even though strong winds continuously bothered me. I am no sailor, who sees winds as their close relatives. The clear water, however, was so tempting.

Fishing from the bridge looked like a challenging activity. It surely needs a very long and strong string for the bait to reach its destination, while it's tough for the person to see clearly of what's happening with the hook down there.

Jembatan Barelang is actually a chain of 6 various types of bridges with total length of 2 kilometers and distance from the first bridge to the last one of about 50 km. The above cable-stayed bridge, named Tengku Fisabilillah Bridge, is the most popular one, connecting Batam and Tonton Island.

A ship was seen passing by. Batam has five main ports, namely Batam Centre, Nongsapura, Sekupang, Telaga Punggur and Waterfront City. The ports serve travelers to and from Singapore, Johor, Sumatera, Karimun islands, Bintan and other nearby destinations.

A traditional boat was floating static, looked like collecting something from the seabed.

Due to limited time, we had no chance to see all the bridges, or to visit Galang Island where Vietnam refugees were sheltered. If you fly to Medan or Singapore, plan to make a stop at Batam, and spend a few hours exploring Barelang Bridge, after or before enjoying good sea food with very reasonable price. 

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