Rant 1: permits & visas

This blog runs the risk of becoming a cross between a medical bulletin and a psychotherapeutic exercise. This is one reason why I have been reluctant to add new posts. But now I think I should just embrace its latter function and go ahead and vent, and friends will worry about my mental state and let me know when it is really enough..

So today’s rant is about the renewal of research permits and visas. Here is the procedure. Write a request (and provide lots of documentation) to the dept. of research and technology (RISTEK), in Jakarta. If successful, go and get the research permit extension. Take that to the Police central office (also in jkt) to get a travel permit, which you will need to then go to the ministry of internal affairs, to get another document, which you will need to take to the dept. of forestry, which will release a permit to enter the national park. This is already a complicated procedure, but, eheh, there is a catch: to get the travel permit from the police, you need another document, sort of a residence permit, which you can get, in the region where you work, i.e. Lampung, Sumatra. So you have to travel to jkt (a nice 10 hrs of night-bus), get document #1, then back to bloody Sumatra, get #2 and then back to jkt! Several of these steps don’t really require my presence, so I asked my ghostly counterpart (WCS) to help, by sending somebody to get these documents, but they were quite blunt in not helping. I asked RISTEK, and managed to get hold of a girl who said she would do the steps 3-5 for me. But then she said it would take approximately 8-14 days! So in the end I had to go and do all by myself.

Additional little frustrations and some gratifications:

- After two nights of no sleep, arriving to jkt at 5.30 a.m., waiting for the office to open, being admitted by the guard, going up to the right floor, finding nobody, going down and being told that well, of course nobody is there, since today is a national holiday..

- Telling WCS I need them to send a fax to Immigration, with large advance, and after one week still waiting for it, but

- The Immigration officer, at that point, having pity and giving me the visa even if that thing was not arrived.

- During the countless hours waiting in an office, being shown a piece of paper, hoping it is the document I so desperately need, but no, it is a job offer for his son, just graduated, in a plantation, in Sarawak or Kalimantan, what do I think of it?

- Or being introduced to two interns, who are supposed to practice their English, and talking to them for two hours about the state of tourism in Sumatra and the best ways to improve it.

- But, being driven to offices I must get to, by the officer who was on his way home with his son (on a very fancy SUV), or by the job-offer guy (on a ancient Vespa).

- Having to pay the usual 30$ bribe to the police to get the travel permit, but

- Managing to get a receipt for that!