Visa or American Express?

As many of you probably know I am currently in Bali. Im writing this blog post from my phone so there may be more than the usual number of typos and grammatical errors. I thank you in advance for your understanding.

I’ve come to Bali for 6 weeks. The first 4 weeks are to volunteer with sea turtle conservation. The last 2 weeks are to tour the country- including a yoga retreat at a posh resort on the beach - the opposite of volunteering accommodations.

To come to Bali you don’t need a visa. You can stay as a tourist for up to 30 days visa free. Stay 31 days and you need a visa. My return ticket is for 42 days so that means I need a visa. The volunteer organization I work with recommends 2 ways to get your visa. Way 1- Fill out a complicated application and send your passport to the Indonesian embassy in San Francisco with $65 and they will supply you with a visa. Way 2- come to Bali and the volunteer organization will show you how to extend your visa past 30 days in Bali. While I was still at home Way 2 sounded so much easier...

Today I made my journey to get my extended visa. The journey didn’t really start today. It turns out to get an extended visa I have to work with an immigration agent. For 750,000 Indonesian Rupiah ($50) the agent will facilitate my getting a visa. For 1,000,000 ($68) they guarantee the visa extension will be completed in one day. So, one day last week I headed to downtown Ubud (1st week of volunteering is in Ubud and taxi was 100,000) to pay my immigration agent 1,000,000 so that today I could go to the immigration office and get my visa extended. You see, back on November 3rd when I arrived in Bali I paid $35 to get a “Visa on Arrival”. That allows me to extend my 30 day visa. To add to the cost I had to come back to Depensar, the city where the airport is. Now that I’m volunteering with the turtles I’m living on an island off of Bali (not to be confused with the island of Bali) and I had to take a boat to Bali (125,000) and then a taxi from the port to immigration (100,000). In hindsight that first option for a visa would have been a better choice.

This morning I headed off to the boat. I’ve never traveled around this country alone besides the taxi ride to the immigration officer’s office. I was nervous- I don’t know the language beyond what we were taught in orientation- greetings, colors, animal names, numbers... these things won’t get me a visa or to my location if I got lost. I am a planner by nature or at least I was in my career. So I went into planning mode for this trip to immigration both to get this effort done properly and also to lower my levels of fear around this activity. I’m not gonna lie- the trip to immigration seemed a little terrifying. I kept playing in my head- “what is the worst that can happen? You have cash, a credit card, a phone”. In my head I keep calling myself brave. I booked the boat to Bali, the taxi from the port to immigration, and headed out.

My first leg of the journey was from the volunteer house to the harbor. The volunteer organization takes me to the harbor (for free). What I didn’t realize until they actually took me was that the journey was on the back of a motorbike. I’ve never been on a motorbike or a motorcycle in my life. I’m anal about safety. Here I was, first leg of my trip on a motorbike in a country with crazy roads and crazy drivers and I did not wear a helmet. Well the fact I’m writing this blog is proof I made it through that experience.

Next I was on the ferry. The first thing you do when you get on the ferry is take off your shoes. This isn’t because it’s a house (in Balinese culture there are no shoes in rooms including the bathroom), it’s because when you get on and off the ferry in Bali there is no gangway. You step through the water. This water journey was a fun experience when we set off for the island- all 6 of us with big suitcases in tow, rolling them down the sand. Today I was just a backpack and Teva sandals. The ferry was fast! 15 passengers inside compared to the 100 when we first arrived so I think that must have pushed us faster. I got to the dock 45 minutes before my taxi was to arrive. It’s okay to be early! I wandered the market and let the vendors hawk me to buy hats, sarongs, snacks, and ferry tickets. It was getting super hot (as Bali does) but I knew my taxi driver would arrive soon with air conditioning- a pleasure unknown in my volunteer house.

My taxi driver was 15 minutes late. No problem! My appointment wasn’t till noon. I had 75 minutes to get to a stop I figured was 30 minutes away. When the driver arrived I discovered it was only a 15 minute ride. When he dropped me off their was confusion. He had figured I hired him for the day- not just a ride to immigration. It was unclear how long my appointment would take and he wasn’t going to stay all day..so we agreed to a 100,000 fare and off he went.

I entered the immigration building. It was quiet. There were 2 doors. One said “staff only”. There were 2 empty chairs behind a table. I sat in one chair and called my immigration agent. There was no answer so I sent him a message. No response. I waited...About 10 minutes later a man with an official looking uniform came into the lobby and asked me what i was doing there. I explained that I was there for an appointment. Apparently I was in the wrong building. He directed me and sent me oh my way. In the new building I was more comfortable feeling that I had arrived in the right place. The room looked like the DMV. There was an electronic board with numbers on it. Every so often a woman would say a number (in Indonesian) calling the next applicant. I figured I would just wait for my immigration agent. I had almost an hour to wait. Again, it was okay to be early.

At noon my immigration agent was no where to be seen. I called his office and explained I was waiting. The woman at the office said she would track down the agent and have him call me. She said everyone was at lunch. Why give me a noon appointment if everyone was at lunch! I waited another 30 minutes. Nothing. I called the agent’s office again This time a man answered and told me the same news. I was getting anxious. Okay maybe this trip was for nothing and I will have to come back another day. But the immigration agent took my passport last week! I had no idea where it was at this point! It could be lost on someone’s desk? How could I leave the country? Would my photocopy be enough?

While I pondered these ideas and came up with more dire scenarios (think Balinese jail) my immigration agent FINALLY showed up. “Everyone is at lunch” he told me. I knew that. But I thrilled he had arrived. Hopefully my 1,000,000 was paying off and I would see my passport soon.

More sitting and waiting. At 1 pm the new area I was sitting in came alive. Officials showed up behind the counters and customers were filing in. There were more numbers flashing on an electronic screen. It was another DMV scenario. I wondered if my agent had a number ticket for me. For the first time since leaving the USA I was actually feeling cold. The A/C here was strong. Then at 1:11 pm it happened. I had a ticket that correlated with the flashing number board. There I was number C072. Based on the numbers flashing on the board it looked like I had 5 tickets ahead of me for 2 photo rooms. I should have kept an eye on how long photos had been taking.

Just 10 minutes later it was my turn! I got to sit in front of a man with an official uniform. He asked me where I was staying. How long would I be in Bali? Was this my first time in Bali? I could see my passport in the folder he was holding. He took my photo and fingerprinted me. Then he threw the folder with my passport in a big pile and he sent me on my way. My immigration agent was waiting outside. “Come back at 3:30. Your passport will be ready around 4 or 5”. Seriously? The last ferry is at 6. I hoped I would make it.

To kill the time I set off into town. Thanks to google maps I was able find a restaurant and it served pizza! I was excited. The pizza turned out okay and the mango smoothie I got with it was amazing. Thanks to the lunch and Balinese wait staff who are never in a hurry I managed to kill a good 90 minutes with lunch. Now it would be anywhere from 30-120 minutes of waiting.

When I got back to immigration my agent was smiling! He had my passport. I can now stay in Bali until January 1 2019. I love it here but my plan is to leave December 14, 2018. Next it was time to get back to the turtles on the island. Did the agent know a taxi driver to call? He did not. He recommended I just go look for one on the road. The entire time I was walking to lunch taxi drivers stopped and asked if I wanted a ride. Once I got out on the road to look for a taxi to take me back to the ferry there wasn’t a single taxi driver to be found. Just so you know, finding taxi drivers in Bali is not easy. They don’t have taxi lights or advertising on the side of the taxi. A taxi looks just like any other car. So I walked in the direction of the ferry port and hoped for the best. No drivers. Sweat dripped down my back. Still no drivers. Finally I navigated my way across traffic and into a Circle K. “Do you know of any taxis?” I asked. They did not. One young man recommended I use the apps- Grab or Go-Jek. These are the Uber and Lyft of Bali. I downloaded both apps but couldn’t get either to work- I needed a Balinese phone number. The young man offered to use the app on his phone for me. I was very grateful. Finally the taxi driver arrived and whisked me off to the ferry. He only charged 19,000 for my ride back (well 20,000 because no one in Bali seems to carry change). Clearly my first driver was a rip-off. I ran to the ferry hopeful to make the 4 pm ride. I made it in time and they wanted to charge me 200,000. “What!” I exclaimed. “I’m from Green Lion” (the volunteer organization). “Oh,” she said. “Then it’s only 125,000. “

During the entire day I had been texting with TOG, who was worrying for my safety some 8,000+ miles away. Having paid for my ferry I assured him everything was fine. It was almost 1 AM in Utah and I recommended that he go to sleep. Then the ferry company called us to get on the ferry. Unlike my first trip to the island where we took steps down to the boat this time they had us walk down a jetty of loose, jagged boulders. I was struggling to keep my footing. Luckily, another passenger saw me and yelled something in a language I could not understand. He grabbed my hand and helped me down the jetty. I accepted help! I was grateful.

The boat ride back was uneventful. I messaged the folks at Green Lion to tell them to pick me up when I arrived on the island and they agreed. When I got to the dock the Green Lion folks weren’t there. I called. No answer. I messaged. No response. After 30 minutes I gave up and walked back to Green Lion.

All in all the trip had its challenges and the waiting unnerved me. In the end I have a visa till 2019 and I managed to make it back to my Bali home unscathed. I call that a good day.