Visa run from hell

What was I thinking of? Pizza, pasta, cheese, cafe latte, hot shower... And a slack line. Was it worth it? Without the slack line hell no... I had a 60 days tourist visa for Indonesia which I could extend 4 times for 30 days each either in Gorontalo or Palu. But I decided to fly to Kuala Lumpur, get a new one for 60 days & eat eat eat something else than rice & fish. Good plan, not so good execution.

My flights to KL were really cheap, around 40 e total. Ok, the 10 h bus ride from Ampana to Palu is never a bliss but this time I had company at least, thanx Randhy for the chat. I found a nice small hotel in Jalan Alor, THE food street in KL though it is quite asian so I ended up eating mostly in the food court of Pavilion mall. They have a decent italian restaurant and a subway. All good so far.

Not so good anymore at the Indonesian embassy. I was there really early in the morning, delivered all the papers they wanted just to find out the next day that they give me a visa only for 30 days but for the same money as the visa for 60 days. Which is double amount to visa-on-arrival, which is also valid for 30 days. No thank you. And no explanation why. If you do this shit on purpose please put the information on the website, saves many tourist the trip to KL.

I was pissed off, booked a flight to Jakarta for the same evening, what the hell, I'll just take a VoA, even though I can extend it only once. So I waited, waited, waited in the airport until I got the notice, that the flight is cancelled. A volcano in Java is erupting. Yea. Nobody of course knows what's gonna happen in the next days/weeks, and I still remember too well the shit going on when Eyjaflallajökull in Iceland made the flight traffic in Europe to stop for quite a while. I did a quick check in the internet and found out there's still one flight to Kota Kinabalu on the same night but from the other airport. And it can't be booked online anymore.

So quick quick quick, bus from LCCT to KLIA and then I had to wait for an hour in the line for the Malaysian Airlines ticket counter. Luckily I got a really nice lady who put me in front of the waiting list so I got my ticket (yea, expensive) and could board the plane.

The weekend in KK was really nice, just hanging out with my old buddy Cliff and some of his friends. Cold beer!!! I also managed to finish some work. Then I decided to try out with visa in Tawau, which has a reputation of being efficient, fast, and easy... Some people go in and out in one hour. I flew to Tawau on Sunday and went to the consulate early in the morning. Only 2 tourist were applying for a visa so I thought this is going to be more than fast. I waited. And waited. At one o'clock they were closing the counters for a lunch break so I went to ask what's up. They told me Jakarta is offline and being so they can't process visa applications. And no idea when they'll be online again. I went back to town, had a lunch and took a bus back to the consulate in the afternoon. And met a smiling clerk who wanted 170 ringits from me and handed out my passport with a 60 days visa. Hell yea!

The consulate in Tawau was anyways very different from the embassy in KL. They didn't wanna have any photocopies as they also have a printer and they took the photos directly at the consulate. No onward ticket? No problem, they just took a photo copy of my credit card. No plans what to do in Indonesia? No problem, here's a letter, just copy this and put some other information & dates in it. And everybody was more than friendly, unlike in KL. I can only recommend this place!

The next problem. Booking flights at last minute is really expensive. There would be a ferry to Tarakan on the Indonesian side but it leaves around noon. Which means I for sure would have to spend a night in Tarakan. If I take the Maswings flight I could still connect with Lion Air to Palu via Balikpapan the same evening. Still, 85 e for 40 min flight in this continent is loads of money. And I'm paying... I also cannot book the forward ticket online as Lion Air flights inside Indonesia cannot be paid with foreign credit cards. So they also will be extremely expensive.

Weirdly Maswings told me at check-in that Tarakan has some new regulations and I should have an onward ticket out of there. Well I don't have as I cant book them online. But I do have a visa already. Nope, I need on onward ticket. Luckily I had booked a really cheap one from Jakarta to Singapore as I had planned to go back with VoA and they for sure want to see a ticket. That was sufficient for Maswings, I hope it's also okay for Indonesian immigration in Tarakan. I'll find out in a few hours...

No photos again. I took only one and it was of food in Kuala Lumpur. I don't think anyone else than Tanja would want to see it.

And coz Tanja wanted to see it here it is. My only asian dinner in KL. Sushi doesn't count as asian. The western food was in my belly before I could take out my camera/phone.

The circus attraction returned to the beach

As the few people who reads this blog knows from the previous update, I went to Ampana to do some work online. I finished the job in a few days and wanted to go back to Bomba/Poya Lisa as soon as possible. Easier said than done. It's been a quite stormy December/January and the waves continued to prevent boats from leaving the dock. The boats going to Bomba are quite small and made out of wood, so I really don't wanna be stuck (again) in one when the storm begins in open sea. So I waited. And waited.

In Ampana I basically can't go anywhere without being robbed out of all my energy in half an hour. They don't see many tourist in this part of Indonesia and the people are VERY interested in anything you do. Especially if you are alone. Sometimes even cars stop next to you just to have a chat in non-existing english or just to shout something clever at you, like Bule (white foreigner)! Or Tattoo! Yes to both and thank you of telling me, just in case I hadn't noticed. And I still don't get why random people want to be photographed with me, as they don't know me. Then again, I was showing some photos to a local girl here and on my laptop I had a photo of a pretty house in Estonia. She asked me who lives there. I said I don't know. She found it really odd/funny that I took a photo of a house of which I don't know the owner of. And here many people here want to take a photo with a person they don't know. Maybe we are all odd…

Puspita Sari, fastest connection from Ampana to Wakai. 

Never ask this boy "di mana kuching", where's the cat. He'll bring all the neighbourhood cats to your balcony.

After 8 days I grew so tired of being an circus elephant that I decided to skip Bomba and took a ferry to Wakai, the biggest village in the Togean Islands. I ended up staying there another 8 days, renting a room in the upper floor of a house owned by a lovely local woman and her english husband. And their madly energetic 5-year old son :) Hanging out in Wakai is mostly about eating crabs, fish, squid etc. and to flush the dinner down with a glass or two of Septikus. I don't really wanna swim in front of the village as the water is quite murky, but I did manage to go jogging early in the morning before the village wakes up. Running towards the sunrise on empty streets is quite fantastic.

Not a bad jogging ground.

I also scrubbed Ellys boat which has been broken for many months already. Not it's finally being fixed and after the wood work is done it can be painted, as the outside of the boat is bright and shiny. I did though escape from further work and went to Fadhila Cottages in Katupat for some beach&hammock treatment. Same place as when I was here in October. Nice corals in front of the beaches, excellent food and great staff. I forced Ida and the boys to play rummikub with me every evening and it was really interesting to follow how they try to cheat all the time but they still don't win. Hmmm... Maybe they should rather use the energy for following the game but hey, where's the fun in that.

I did two dives near Katupat but forgot my underwater camera housing in Wakai so no photos this time. Oh well... There will be plenty later. The internet connection is extreme slow here (2G with phone) so I'll add photos to this post later when I'm back in the main land.