Australian! Eh, Eh, Eh! Australian!

In order to be considered for a one month tourist visa on arrival to Indonesia, you have to pay $25 USD to a customs agent. This is non-refundable, and they can still deny you the visa. I paid my $25, walked over to the visa line and had my passport stamped by an exceedingly lackluster government employee who did not look at the customs forms I filled out or anything in my passport other than my photo. So, it was fine, but I was annoyed that I had taken the time to be sure that all of my answers were right on a document that clearly nobody cared about.

I followed an airline employee down to customs for my bags and after I walked through without anybody looking at my bags either, he left me out front to wait. I had plenty of time to take a photo of the place where I was waiting, since we landed an hour early and my ride was an hour late.

A view of International Arrival Gate D

In comparison to the Narita airport that had very modern looking check-in areas, and then faded and stained grey carpet everywhere else, Soekarno-Hatta airport was done in tile and varnished red brick. There were traditional-patterned carvings on the wall, which I did not get a photo of, since I was still trying to keep up with the airline employee at that point.

The only issue with the two hour wait was that I had to fend off taxi drivers the entire time. They really, really wanted to take me home. I kept saying no, someone was coming to pick me up. I had to tell the same drivers multiple times that I did not want a ride. One particularly enterprising taxi driver assumed that since I was white and I was on this side of the world, I must be from Australia. So he started shouting, "Eh, eh, eh! Australian! Eh, eh, eh! Australian!" This, of course, did not get my attention, so he then stood right in front of me and said, "Australian. I take hotel." Thanks, no.

Success at last! 

Luckily, I won't need to go back there until my work visa is finalized. I'll need to fly to Singapore and back again in order to get that taken care of.