Visa Vacation

View from above - Bali

For about as long as I can remember I have had an intense feeling of wanderlust and strong desire to travel as much as possible. Perhaps it was because I had multiple family members who were former United Airlines employees with cheap travel benefits. Starting from a young age we would often hop on a plane to visit family or go on a vacation somewhere, so flying became the norm. My mother, aunt, father and step-father all had held managerial roles with United Airlines in the past and most notably my grandfather worked for United many years of his life, climbing the ladder to become Senior VP of Maintenance Operations before retiring. He and my grandmother had the privilege of traveling the world, as he held an important role during a time where business trips were paramount due to the lack of technologies such as the Internet, Skype and email that often take the place of a face to face meeting nowadays. I remember getting Christmas cards from them with a photo of some exotic locale such as a cruise in Mexico or my favorite showing them on camels visiting the pyramids of Egypt. As I grew older I would love to hear the stories of my grandpa taking my grandma to a Geisha House in Japan, or my grandma talking about a salmon fishing trip to Alaska, or the one about them flying from Greece to Paris one year for my grandma's birthday - is that right grandpa?? I am not positive on that story but I believe those were the destinations they went, GPD correct me if I am wrong. When I discovered the book case full of photo albums from their travels I would love to flip through them and see all the places they went, and only hope someday I would be as well traveled as they were. Truly inspirational.

Beautiful sights of transit

With the Internet and modern services such as Airbnb, Orbitz and other technological advances it certainly has changed the way people travel and instead of hiring an agent to make all the arrangements for you, often you are on your own when planning a trip. It can be quite a challenge navigating factors such as plane tickets, connections, visas, passport issues, ferry boat rides and all the other things that come up when planning to visit a new place. I always say there are two kinds of trips, one is a vacation and the other is when you are traveling somewhere. I would say I have a passion for traveling, and over the years I have learned a lot on the subject (mostly by making A LOT of mistakes and getting smarter along the way). Traveling, especially in a foreign country, can be challenging and if you are in a developing country it adds another element of difficulty in navigating your path. I find I a learning something almost daily when I travel, and this trip has been no different. Enter the tale of my botched (and fairly pricy) Indonesian Visa experience...

Arriving at Ngurah Rai InternationalAirport in Bali

When I decided to come to Bali for two months I immediately started researching their visa requirements. I knew from my visit to Bali before that US citizens receive a 30 day visa on arrival (we are privileged to receive this in many foreign countries), but if you wanted to stay longer you needed to apply for a tourist visa. I quickly began my 60-day tourist visa application process, which included an online application, copies of travel documents showing your flights booked into and out of the country (yes they need to see proof you actually plan to leave), copies of recent bank statements (you better come and spend some money while you visit their country, a cashier's check for the $50 application fee and two passport photos. As I was living in Florida at the time but planning to come back to California before leaving and time was limited, I assembled all these items, headed to FedEx to print the paperwork and take my passport photos and shipped all the items to the Indonesian Embassay in SF. The cost to ship the package to allow enough time for the passport/application/paperwork to make it, get processed (about a week), and include a return shipping envelope for them to send it to me back in California was about $50 plus the $55 application fee ($50 plus $5 for the cashier's check fee) so total cost for my 60 day visa was about $105. Not really bad in the scheme of things, and the alternative would mean having to do a "visa run" mid way through the trip which was something I wanted to avoid.

My 60 day tourist Visa

I received my passport back with my 60 day visa secured in one of the pages and I was good to go! As we went through customs on arrival in Bali the agent wrote across the visa page "USED" meaning from that day I had 60 days before I had to leave. If you have been following my blog you know that in a crazy twist of fate I got the opportunity to join some friends on a crossing, helping them deliver their boat from Bali to Singapore within days of my arrival in Indonesia. I jumped at the chance, not even thinking about my visa situation and what that would mean. So after arriving on February 21st within a week the captain had taken my passport to check us all out of Bali before we set sail. After I got my passport back and saw the "USED" written on the visa it clicked, my visa was a single-entry and by leaving the country on that boat I had consequently voided that lovely visa I put so much time and effort into getting (not to mention $105 down the drain - but the money I made on the delivery covered that and more so no use getting too upset).

I immediately started researching options for visa renewals and extensions as now I would have the issue of being in the country longer then 30 days without my tourist visa. I found a travel blog that mentioned an option to get a VOA (Visa on Arrival) at the airport in Bali that you can extend during your time in the country. Sounded good to me, basically you pay $30 at the airport, they give you a sticker in your passport that shows the extendable visa, and you have to renew before the first 30 days is up. In theory it seemed easy, so upon my return to Bali I paid the $30 and got the VOA, figuring I would have to go to the immigration office one day and renew but no big deal. So it seemed.

My visa on arrival

After settling back in I started researching further the VOA renewal process, and quickly realized I had another issue on my hands. Basically to renew you need to go to the immigration office not once, but actually three different times for various reasons; once to apply, once to fingerprint and leave your passport, and finally the last time to pick it up. To make matters worse, the closest immigration office is located in Denpasar, which is about two hours from Ubud. So not only would this be a significant time commitment to get there and back and also wait to be taken care of (think a trip to the DMV, but even worse in a foreign country where you are the outsider) but also costly to hire drivers for all three days. There was also all kinds of rules on when you can start the process (has to be at least two weeks into your trip) and when it needs to be completed by (seven days or more before the first 30 days is up). As if this was not enough hoop jumping, I realized my timing of when all these visits needed to happen was right around the week of Nyeppi, the Balinese New Year. I had already read many blog posts about planning ahead due to the fact Bali has so many holidays and it was not uncommon to show up to immigration and the office would be closed for some holiday or celebration, so the chances of me getting this taken care of during their biggest holiday of the year...slim.

Off to Singapore...for four hours!

After looking at all the facts I decided that unfortunately the amount of stress, time and hoop jumping for the VOA renewal process was just not worth it and really the best option would be to do a visa run (another $30 down that same drain - sigh). This is a common term for travelers, basically describing the process of leaving a country for a day in order to return and be granted another length of stay. It is a way of getting around the visa requirements, and it is a pain. I had to do a few visa runs when I was living in Phuket and they are costly and exhausting. Luckily Jess and I had happened to arrive in Bali the same day so she was in the same situation of needing to leave, there was still so much we wanted to see in Indonesia. We started looking at flights to Singapore, which is the closest (approximately a two hour flight) and cheapest hub (round trip flight was about $200) to fly to from Bali, and booked a round trip flight flying out in the morning with a four hour gap in Singapore then returning that evening to Bali. We booked a cheap transit hotel close to the airport in Denpasar (not a desirable destination but convenience was key) for two nights so we could leave our luggage there and headed out for the run.

Visa run shenanigans - at least we were in it together!

Some of the best dim sum I have had - not surprising seeing as we are in Asia, just check out that receipt

Luckily Singapore airport is one of the nicest airports in the world with amazing dining options, a roof top pool, butterfly garden, movie theater and my favorite the free foot massage chairs all around the terminals. Jess and I arrived and had a lovely dim sum lunch, perhaps some of the best dumplings of my life, sat in the foot massage chair for nearly an hour, went shopping at the apple store, printed out our Vietnam visa application paperwork, then got back on our plane to Bali. We made the most of it and had an incredibly productive day in the airport. Thank goodness we were able to do it together and make the most out of the situation! The kicker to the whole thing was when we ran into Jess's friend the day before our visa run and she told me she had simply paid a local agent to assist with renewing her VOA and she only had to go to the immigration office once and pay this person $45 - I wanted to cry...another travel LESSON LEARNED!!! The whole conundrum ending up costing a few hundred dollars which I was able to cover and then some from my boat delivery job, but the irony is if I hadn't done the delivery my 60 day visa would have remained valid. BUT, the experience I had on that board was so WORTH IT as it was an incredible time spent with friends learning more about working on a boat and adding to my experience in the industry. Just funny to think about, and at least now I know how to handle visas in Indonesia so I will never make the same mistakes again :) Always learning...

The coveted immigration stamp - allowed back to Indo!