Quote:
Originally Posted by nono1973
i am kind of sure,regulars no longer visit ALL booking joints/MPs in their every single trip anymore, and most time will visit their favourite food eateries,eat their favourite food , shop for only things they come Batam for ,etc etc. The whole mentality is different for the different level and types of traveler.
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Indeed.
On my first time in Batam, I visited many restaurants, and I wanted to see many places.
Now, I have ONE restaurant in Windsor, ONE street "restaurant" for ikan bakar, ONE restaurant in Harbour Bay. I have my coffee at JCO at Nagoya Hill. I always stay in one of the same 2-3 rooms in Formosa. I always have a look at NoName then I move to Newton or P3 every night. I rarely change the daily routine, because I feel that is the best I can do.
Interestingly, the same happened in some other places of the world where I have become a regular. First time: exhaustive exploration. After few times: stick to the same 2-3 well-experimented places. No risk to go wrong.
Booking joints? If I decide to have a look, I try to visit as many as I can, to be sure I am not missing some isolated rare "gem" hiding in one of the places. This did not change since my first visit.
By the way, dear Nono, you know what would be EXTREMELY USEFUL to all visitors, including new ones, almost regulars, expecially returning visitors after a long time?
A list of booking joints (be them named as "massage" or "KTV") kept updated every month, area by area. Not a big work: just a list of names with area where they are located.
New joints open and traditional ones close (Permata Indah! SIGH!!) or change name (Sedona a.k.a. Gold Bird). Instead of grabbing an ojek and asking for "cewek", it is much better to have a piece of paper in hand with that magic list of 15 places. Many ojek drivers do not know all of them, or DO NOT WANT to go there, if not forced, because commission is lower. Having a list in hand is strongly advisable IMHO.
I recently found a piece of paper, all deteriorated, which I used to keep with me on my first year in Batam. All those names are now history (New Berlian!)