Just An invoice Away from Leaving Jakarta

23 December 2008

We woke up at 8am after a good night’s sleep. Jonny was a little upset that the water in the shower was only luke warm (for 250 000 rp, you expect hot water!).

The plan was that I was going to meet with Mr. Indrawan at 10 am to finish up the paper work, and Jonny was going to an internet café to buy our plane tickets with Air Asia. We were hoping to get on the 2:50pm flight to Batam.

So Jonny went on his way, and I waited in the parking lot for the distinct BMW. There were many overly excited cabbies who offered me a lift wherever I wanted to go....In any case, Mr. Indrawan and his colleague (we were never properly introduced and I never learned his name) arrived on time. We went to the hotel restaurant where I ordered a coffee, and they, a tea each. Mr. Indrawan showed me the shipping invoice, the export documents and contact information for the person at port Klang. He told me that the bill of lading could be sent to me by email in pdf form. Everything looked in order, so I counted the 550 USD and 2,100,000 rupiah (we thought it would be 2,300,000, but we didn’t have to pay one of the import fees). As I was counting, the colleague grabbed his chest, and Mr Indrawan touched his arm and shoulder. Once I handed him the money, Mr. Indrawan excused himself. He said that he would have to cancel their tea order to take his colleague straight to the hospital. He said that his colleague was having a heart attack! I did not know how to react! I asked if he was ok, and he didn’t look well at all (all of us had stayed up late the night before). So I told them to go, and I told Mr. Indrawan to email me. I felt that it was a bit strange that they were so anxious to leave right when they got their money...but no one in their right mind fakes a heart attack! I felt guilty right away for doubting their intentions... I guess I’m a little paranoid about having just given them my car and a large sum of money. The whole ordeal was completely sketchy. I still don’t know how I feel about it...

Jonathan returned and was really shocked when he heard what happened... We went to pizza hut with the man the night before!

Jonathan was able to get us the right tickets for Batam! We learned that a taxi from our hotel to the airport should take 1 hour (though traffic in Jakarta is mental at all hours) and should cost 150,000 rupiah. We had a little while to relax in our room before checkout. We watched Eric Brokovich that was playing on tv and ate our left over Corn Flakes by the handful.

At noon, we grabbed a taxi to the airport. We ate lunch and checked in without a problem. The Jakarta domestic airport is quite pretty! It’s neat how in tropical countries, official buildings don’t need closed walls. The flight went very well. We played cards, read the inflight magazine and we were already there.

In Batam, we saw an add for the Singapore ferry. We asked a few questions, but with no rupiahs or Singapore dollars, we were told we could pay with a credit card at the ferry terminal. I was 445, the ferry left at 520 and a the terminal was a 15 minute taxi ride away. We were optimistic and thought we could make it (forgetting at the time that we had to go through customs). We got to the ferry terminal at 510 we thought we were in the clear...oh were we ever wrong! There were dozens of people standing around the “Penguin” ferries desk, all trying to check in. Check in closes 15 minutes before departure. The next ferry was at 630...I wanted to go, Jonny was a little worried because it meant we would be in Singapore pretty late, without a place to stay. I was keen on leaving. Batam was very nice and clean and new, but I had a feeling it would be hard to find a reasonably priced hotel. We decided to just go for it and take the ferry. I was pretty stressed out because I hate “blobby” lineups. I hate when people cut in front of you in line, and when they push because there’s no order. It’s simple, just wait your turn and stand a reasonable distance behind the person in front of you...Not in Asia! Here, pushing gets you in front faster....In any case, the 630 ferry was sold out, the next was at 730. We learned they didn’t take visa. We asked how much it would cost in rupiah. They said 120 000 rp We were short, so Jonny went to take money out as I waited. This one young woman was trying to cut in front of me in line, and i made a point not to let her. She kept sighing and throwing elbows, and I made a shield around myself on the floor, with our backpacks. She gave up and cut in front of the girl in the line next to mine instead. Jonny came back as the desk lady was entering our information for the tickets. Once it came to paying, it turns out that the person who quoted us the price didn’t speak English very well and made a mistake. We didn’t have enough. I had 45 Aussie dollars, so Jonny went to a money changers where (we later found out) they totally ripped us and gave us 31 Singaporean dollars (the exchange rate was actually 1:1). We handed over 7 Sing dollars, and the desk lady gave us 27 000 rupiah back. I don’t really understand what happened, things were pretty hectic. In any case we got out tickets.

We went to have a little meal with our left over rupiah, and sat around. You could see Singapore from the Batam port, it’s pretty neat. Once on the ferry, we realized that even though Singapore is only a 45-minute ferry ride away, it’s one hour ahead! It’s so strange, because it’s just like going from Fremantle to Rottnest, but it’s in another timezone! Anyway, the ferry was delayed about 30 minutes, so it meant that we wouldn’t get to Singapore until about 10 pm. We were a little frustrated that we would have to find a place to stay that late....

On the ferry, they put the strangest thing on tv. It was a kareoke video of obscure early 90s songs (my favourite was “Inside of my Guitar”). The videos were of late teen/early 20 white folks standing around smelling roses, petting horses, hugging, gazing in the distance, slowly running their fingers in their hair...it was so weird. It’s as thought North America and Australia didn’t know what the hell to do with all these tapes, so they sent them away. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure...it’s all about perspective. It was pretty entertaining...until the tape was done and they just restarted it. “Inside of my Guitar” is hilarious, but only once.

Immigration went fine in Singapore. We were on the MRT at about 1030. We decided to go straight to Little India. We wanted to go to the nice little hotel run by 2 couples of old Chinese darlings, but we knew they didn’t take credit card, and if they were full there was nothing else nearby. So we decided to go to the street with all the backpackers hostels. Jonny was upset not to go (it would be his third time staying with the old folks), but it was for the best. We got to the hostel, paid and got a few pints. Yum Yum.

There is free wireless everywhere in Singapore, so we took advantage of it! I skyped my papa! We got parathas from across the street for 70 cents each (the man even gave us sauce!)

It was a ridiuculously eventful Christmas eve-eve. I love it!

Marie-Claude

The Wombat is Containerized

We finally got news that it was possible to ship the car on the boat leaving the 25th from Indrawan, our shipping agent. MC tried to arrange so that we could have everything done today- so that we could jump on the plane tommorow. He thought it was all possible, so we packed up our gear, had a quick (last?) Nasi Goreng, and hopped in the car. The shipping company was in East Jakarta, and the traffic was terrible, so it was going to take us a while to get there!

We stopped at a shopping mall to pick up some cash, as we couldn’t pay by Visa for the shipping. MC found the new series of ‘Weeds’ and ‘Entourage’ for 5 dollars, a litlle Christmas gift. We failed on the cash mission, the ATMs all had a limit on the amount you could take out, and we needed big moolah!

We finally made it near the Aeroswan shipping office, and called Indrawan come to our meeting spot. He shows up with his associate in a sleek BMW, and we followed him to the container depot. There, we had a highcube container waiting, all ready with a little ramp so that we can drive the car up and into.

It was actually surprising, how smooth everything went. The wombat fit exactly inside the container(almost too close!) and soon enough we had our bags out and disconnected the battery( I guess for safety). The guys got working on the car, latching it down, and we gave them our papers.

Then Indrawan told us that we had to wait until 9 p.m. to see a customs agent. As it was only 6 o’clock, he kindly agreed to go for a ride while we wait the 3 hours. We went to a mall, got out all the cash we needed, and went to Pizza Hut for supper! It was yum-yum. And before we knew it, Indrawan paid for dinner!

Back at the container yard, we learned that the customs agent decided he didn’t need to inspect the container after all. Maybe he had a sudden insight and decided we were trustworthy, or he ogt lazy. The only problem was that we needed to get our carnet stamped. So down to the port we went! We got everything done without much hassle, but by now it was past 10 p.m. and we definitely ready for bed. Mr. Indrawan even drove us to a couple of hotels before we found one that had a room! What a day!

JD

Phone and Email in Jakarta

We checked out of the expensive hotel and into the relatively cheap hostel a couple of doors down on Jalan Jaksa. Then we spent the rest of the day either on the phone,or on the internet, trying to figure out what other people do when they want to ferry their car to mainland SE Asia.

Not a terribly exciting day, except for the fact that MC went grocery shopping and got grilled cheese supplies! YAY!

JD

Drive to Jakarta, Java

17 December 2008

We woke up a bit late and had another Nasi Goreng for breakfast. We were going to check out some hot springs to the North of Bandung, but since we saw the Geology Museum last night, we were keen on checking it out.

The Museum was neat, well done with a lot of pictures, which made it easy for us to understand everything even though most of the writing was in Bahasa Indonesia. Soon we were flooded by schoolkids, so we left when we got tired of the pointing and staring.

We jumped into the car, and drove to Jakarta. It was all highway, so we did it pretty fast, although traffic did get pretty dense as we got closer to Jakarta.

Once there, we realized how big the place actually was, so instead of doing our usual aimless driving to spot a random hotel, we stopped at a cafe with free wireless and tried to find out what the word was online about hostels. Jalan Jaksa seemed like the place, so we braved the traffic again and found a decent hotel, a lot more expensive than we are used to, but i guess it’s just Jakarta.

JD

Cirebon to Bandung, Java

16 December 2008

The last couple of days weren’t too exciting, the only notable thing was that I (JD) visited the doctor who prescribed anitbiotics and rest.

So, today, after I got high on my new drug supply, we checked out of the nice little Hotel Slemat, ran some errands, and hit the road! It took us a long while, along a winding, pothole-ridden road, but it was beautiful countryside with meandering rivers and funny shaped hills.

We once in Bandung, we decided it was best to stay in a hotel, as the twon is huge! It is getting harder to find decent camping space the further west we go in Java. We used our usual tactic of random driving around and checking out each hotel until we found one that we liked. We found a little ‘Wisma’(guesthouse) in the hills just behind the city, which wasn’t too overpriced. We went to an internet cafe, which served delicious crispy chicken, we had two servings. Then we rode a bemo back up the hill and went to bed! Yay!

Cirebon, Java - Back to "Normal Life"

13 December 2008

We celebrated Marie-Claude birthday in style by staying in a 5 star hotel in Semarang.

Unfortunately, after two days of extreme comfort, we are going to hit the road again, and sleep in the car. We heading west towards Jakarta, with a couple of stops in between.

First stop Cirebon. We drove from around 1 pm till nightfall, and checked into a nice cheap hotel in the town of Cirebon. Jonny wasn’t feeling too well by the end of the day, he just can’t get rid of that cold!

The biggest challenge for the next couple of days will be to figure out how we can ship our oversized car across to Malaysia.

Marie-Claude's Birthday!

11 December 2008

We woke up in our huge comfy bed and set up the computer- we had planned to watch the Habs game against Tampa Bay with Louis. He kindly arranged the webcam so we could watch RDS through skype! It was pretty neat, and we had an exciting game, altough the screen was a bit fuzzy and we didn’t realize that they were two goals behind until the very end! A bit embarrassing!

The Management somehoe had got wind of the fact that it was MC’s b-day, and they showed up with some cake and some good wishes, and Mc was ecstatic!

We had a nice breakfast, and then just lounged around, took advantage of the free internet to finally set up our website, and then went for a massage. I thought it was OK, although the lady was a bit too rough for my liking( I kept on telling her “too hard, too hard” and i think she understood “harder! harder!”) MC was disappointed in her massage, the masseuse scrubbed her with the body scrub soap until she had an allergic reaction!

So we tried to forget about that, and went back up to our room and got ready for a fancy dinner on the rooftop. We had quite a few drinks, and a decent meal (I had steak, it was great!), and after that we headed back to our room and into our bed.

JD