Do it yourself - inside immigration

Recently I realized with some concern that my Indonesian visa was only valid four more days. Following the enlightened saying that there is a first time for everything in life, I tried to look forward to my first visit to the world-famous Indonesian Immigration Service.

My mission: to get my sosial budaya limited stay permit extended for one month.

My special intention: not to leave all the fun at Immigration to some agent, who is already much too used to it all for really enjoying it to the full.

Day one

Thus, equipped with my passport and a brand-new sponsorship letter from the Post, I went there - and had an unexpectedly good start:

One of the officers enjoying Jakarta's fresh air outside the building immediately answered my half-posed question about where I was supposed to go: "Second floor, counter seven."

It turned out that this was wrong as I first had to fill in a couple of forms provided downstairs.

These forms were easy to find, inexpensive and provided far too little space to go into details concerning the requested declarations. Thus, having proudly stated my address as not being much more than just Jakarta and stuck the passport photograph formerly attached to my work ID on the form, I confidently made my way upstairs again.

But there, the officer behind counter five had a doubtful look on his watch before I even reached him. He politely let me know that the cashier counter for paying the fee was already closed. Not without being equipped with a bright pink folder for all the documents, I was sent back home.

Even as day one at Immigration had thus come to an abrupt end, I was optimistically looking forward to completing the procedures in an instant the following day.

Day two

Arriving there one hour later than I had planned, due to doubtful short-cuts taken by my cab driver to avoid the traffic jams, I immediately made my way to counter five, second floor, and was directly passed on to the cashier.

A few minutes later and 200,000 rupiah poorer, I was back at the counter, handing over my pink folder and the newly acquired receipts. The officer made me sit down to wait.

When after a while a voice loudly shouted out, "Pak Mario!", interrupting my day-dreaming, I felt confident that everything was going according to plan -- but far from it ...

The summons was simply to inform me that the time had come to head downstairs again to receive some file number from Ibu Ira and take it up to counter five. By applying a straightforward "shout-and-look"-technique, I quickly managed both to find her and to get what was required.

But a real set-back awaited me upstairs: "OK, Mr. Mario, please collect your passport tomorrow." I was determined that there was no way I was taking that trip again the next day, so I said I was going to wait.

Seemingly stunned by this unexpected reaction to his announcement, the officer agreed to bargain about the waiting time. Eventually we agreed on it being two hours, with him remarkably boosting my confidence by offering to pledge his gold Immigration-badge.

I thought I'd might be better to decline that with thanks and opt for a prolonged gado-gado (vegetable dish) in a nearby restaurant instead.

Getting back to a seat in front of the familiar counter a few minutes early, I first noticed what would definitely have vastly diminished my confidence if detected instantly: a sign above the counter showing colorful illustrations connected by numerous arrows and bearing the frightening title: "Procedure for the completion of applications for extensions of limited stay permits".

I had just figured out which illustration I might have reached when a female officer was waving at me with my updated passport. But still too early to celebrate as I was made to get all the documents copied first.

Neither the fact that this step was not displayed on the sign, nor that just one of all the photocopiers in the building was working, was enough to discourage me.

Soon after having spotted a hidden photocopier in a shed in the parking lot, I became the proud owner of another 30-day stay permit in Indonesia.

In retrospect, as it came to a total of only six hours of processing on the part of Immigration, but at least 600 lost calories on my part, I would like to encourage all my fellow foreigners to go to Immigration once in a while: It's quick and it's healthy.

-- Mario Koch