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Extend an Indonesian 60 day visa
Bureaucracy has reached it’s unexpected low point when we went to the immigration office in Yogyakarta the extend our 60 day Social Cultural (Budaya) Visa. Our visa would expire on Friday so we thought going to the immigration on Monday would be early enough. The visa costs enough and every day we wait would be a day longer in Indonesia. There are many places in Indonesia where you can extend your Visa, just search google maps for ‘imigrasie kantor’ and look for a class 1 office. This is our experience: Monday We read online about what we need and gather all documents. Copies of our passports and visa, a printed (fake) ticket and we would fill in the form upon arrival. At the hotel we think about changing our (not to short) shorts into long trousers but, ahh this city doesn’t…
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Money theft: bad things happen…
Unfortunately we’ve ended our travels through Malaysia with another big disappointment. For our flight from Kuala Lumpur to Medan we planned to take our bags with us as carry on luggage, butwhenwegetto the check in they say we can’t so we check in our bags anyway. It all happens so fast, we forget to take out our money we hid in our toiletries bag an hour before… When we arrive in Sumatra we drive to our accommodation and there we discover our money is gone. Our bag is still locked, nothing is damaged but the money we put in our toiletries bag is gone… € 400.00 worth of foreign currencies is stolen from our bag during handling at the airport. We just can’t believe it! And even the old Zimbabwean banknote of 20 billion Dollars from before the micro inflation…
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Applying for a 60 day visa Indonesia
Because our stay in Indonesia will be longer than the regular 30 days for which you get a visa upon arrival, we need to apply for a 60 day visa in advance. This Social Cultural (Budaya) Visa can later be extended at any immigration office in Indonesia for about € 25.00. When we get to the Consulate of Indonesia in Kuching on Borneo the office is very crowded. The long queue at the reception takes about 20 minutes where we get a application form and a number. We can sit down and fill in the form. We’ve brought our printed (fake) ticket from Jakarta to Amsterdam and US Dollars to pay for the fee. When our number comes along we’ve only been there for five minutes so we are very surprised. The waiting area is totally full with people so…
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Capetown is cool
After a long turbulent flight with transfer in Qatar we finally exit the Cape Town terminal. We sniff the air, how does South Africa smell? Ahhh good! With the MyCity bus we drive to the center for about € 6.50 per person. The bus is quite modern and not very crowded. After a large industrial area we drive past slums where the public toilets are lined up and the garbage bags are thrown over the fence. Pretty sad. Next everything is much greener and we even see flamingos in a river along the highway. Cool! The Table Mountain is very visible and looks impressive. At the foot of the mountain there is a small park where we see zebras running. The windows in the bus are open, the fresh wind blows in and smells like a barbecue. When we arrive…
