When we lived in Singapore, we did a brief excursion to Tanjung Pinang, on Pulau Bintan. This weekend, en route to do some research in other parts of Indonesia, we popped into another of the Riau islands, Batam.

Archipelagic Riau is part of the cross-border region known as Sijori (Singapore/Johor/Riau). Back then I talked about its historical, social, and economic complexity. Years later, inequities go hand in hand with success stories.

Batam has not necessarily always enjoyed a good reputation, and even though there have been attempts to clean up the sleazier elements, the island gets short shrift from Lonely Planet. Singaporean bloggers tend to major on seafood, spa treatments, and shopping, all of which are cheaper than back home. But there's lots more to Batam than that.

We flew from Subang, which always makes a nice change from dragging out to the KLIAs, and the clear day gave us great views of the convoluted, blue/grey/green, island-specked world beneath. In our one-and-a-half days we experienced two sides of Batam that were not only very different from each other, but also rather different from the stereotypes.

We stayed in Batam Centre. This area has a large mall, which was busy hosting an "environment ambassador" competition when we visited. The mall links directly to the ferry port. (And the ferry port, as well as ferries, has a fabulous layer cake shop. Kue lapis is a Batam speciality, apparently, and its buttery decadence is pretty hard to beat, I must say.)





Very close to the mall are the main mosque and a lovely park, where ever-exuberant Indonesians run, walk, eat, practise marching, and lots of other things. A little further on, a tract of unused land comes alive in the evenings with all sorts of food stalls, pedal cars, and bouncy castles. Here we had our first kerak telur (which, contrary to all the pictures I see on the internet, are made in Batam in little "dimple" pans).













The other area we explored was very different. From 1979 to 1995, Pulau Galang hosted over a quarter of a million Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees/asylum-seekers, and the camp has been preserved as a historic site.

We hired a car and a driver to take us there, and the route is really interesting. First you're on Batam's smart tree-lined dual-carriageways, with their "industrial estates" and small malls. Eventually you get to "more ordinary" Indonesia, with roadside warungs, backed by a combination of wild land and cultivated fields. Vistas of islands open up, some with stilt villages. All in all, you cross five bridges. The biggest, the Barelang bridge, is quite a party site, with people taking photos, getting photos taken, and even doing the odd bit of vending.





It takes a good hour and a quarter to get to the site (including a photo stop at the bridge). It's definitely a good idea to have a car available (rather than just get dropped off), as the area is extensive, and the signs are few. The place is running in macaques, but the terrain is pleasant, rolling, and green.

The museum is slightly lacking in background narrative, but there are masses of archival photos, and a few documents and artefacts.









A little further up the road is a complex of buildings, including the youth centre, the power station, the Catholic church, and a Buddhist temple. Not far from the entrance, there is a cemetery.











Sources are a little sparse, and the data they contain are not always consistent. Inevitably, you leave with a desire to find out more. And inevitably this is a poignant place, where tragedy and hope are very closely intertwined. People lived here, as opposed to perishing en route. But a full 500 occupy the cemetery. The many traumatizing effects of the journeys continued to wreak havoc in different ways. There are photos of celebrations and the webs of normality that humans will always try to construct even in trying circumstances. But these people were not yet free. And some never achieved resettlement, and were repatriated.

For me, Pulau Galang is testimony to the very hardest form of travel.