Where is Rune?

I am planning a vacation to Europe in August together with 3 girls
(Caecil, Astrid and Saras), and yesterday we booked and paid for plane tickets from Jakarta to Paris, return trip. Outbound 12 August, and inbound 29 August. Airline: Luftwaffe (or was it Lufthansa?). We paid USD 935 each by using credit card on the airline’s website.

It was sort of funny; we were in different locations at the time of booking, and arranged a conference call to synchronize the booking process, to make sure we all got the same quoted price, flight schedule etc. When everybody was ready, we hit the “Buy now” button on the website booking pages. It worked out well…

Last weekend, we went to the local DVD store in Mall Fantasy (“Mal Fantasi” in Indonesian) here in Balikpapan, as we often do during the weekends, to check out if there’s any new DVD titles. To my surprise, I noticed a Norwegian film, see the DVD cover below. It cost Rp 10,000 (less than a dollar). I haven’t watched it yet, but I will.

The original (Norwegian) title is “Fritt Vilt 2” and is from 2008.

Indonesian ATM machine

It is difficult to find ATM machines dispensing Rp 100,000 bills. I know about only 2 here in Balikpapan. Most ATMs, like the Bank Mandiri ATM shown here, dispense only Rp 50,000 bills. And the maximum number of dispensed banknotes is usually 25.

Why is this a problem? It is a problem if you are paying € 3.50 for every withdrawal, like I do. € 3.50 is equivalent to about Rp 50,000, which is a lot of money to a lot of people here. Therefore, I always search for the ATM which can give me the maximum amount in one transaction. I have found HSBC ATMs (which do exist in Jakarta) to be the best ones, since they can dispense 40 x Rp 100,000 notes. Citibank ATMs can dispense 30 x Rp 100,000 notes.

On Monday 16 February I considered it was time to apply for another visa extension here at the local immigration office. And again, it was a rather painless process, with the only exception that one of the officers hinted for an extra payment “under the table”, even though my application already was approved and my passport already was stamped with extension II. I just pointed at the official receipt and mentioned that I already had paid. I was then asked to come back the next day, which I did, and happily picked up my stamped passport. That was Thursday 19 February. I probably would have saved one day of “visa processing” had I paid the “extra” money.

So, in summary:
16 Feb: Filled in and submitted application form.
18 Feb: Paid the official fee of Rp 250,000.
19 Feb: Picked up passport.

Easy.

On the evening of Sunday 1 February I flew to Jakarta on Mandala (Rp 400,000) to pick up my brand new passport at my embassy. Well arrived at Soekarno-Hatta, I took a taxi to the usual dump near jl Jaksa, still @80,000 Rp a night.

On Monday morning I picked up my new passport, thereafter I went to the Indian embassy to transfer my Indian visa (which is still valid for another 3 and a half years) to the new passport. Paid Rp 59,000 for that service.

On Tuesday at 16:00 I went to the Indian embassy again to pick up my passport with the transferred visa.

Yesterday evening, 4 February, I flew back to Balikpapan on Lion Air (Rp 400,000).