Fri, 12 Nov 2004

No visa extension, unless, of course...

I am French and arrived in Bali on Sept. 29. I got a tourist visa on arrival and paid US$25.

As I wanted to extend my stay, I called the immigration office and they told me that it would be impossible to extend a tourist visa and I had to go out of the country to Singapore. So I contacted a few travel agents and most of them said I could extend my visa for from Rp 1.5 million to Rp 2 million. As it is cheaper to do this than to travel to Singapore, I paid for the visa extension.

I have traveled to more than 60 countries around the world and this is the first time that I was unable to legally extend my visa through the immigration office. This is another form of corruption and I hope that the new government will change this stupid regulation.

PIERRE MICHEL Bali