Bali – Singapore airline ticket

After our run at the beach this morning at 6.45, Sean and I showered and headed to the BNI bank on Jl. Legian to get to our safety deposit box. My airline ticket (the last part of my multistop deal from AirTreks) to Singapore was inside and I had to check on the details. Coming to Indonesia they sometimes insist you have an onwards ticket although both times Sean has entered the country the immigration officer hasn’t needed it.

I am getting a 6 month business visa which means instead of leaving the country for one day every 2 months I have to do it only twice a year. The Indonesian government are crazy not to cut expats a deal whereby they pay $500-$1,000 a year and get stamped with a multi-entry ‘do what you like’ type visa. Instead, people like me have to spend time, effort and money leaving the country paying money to Qantas, Thai Air, Singapore Airlines etc that could be spent in the local economy. There’s 20,000 expats here (20,000 * 1,000 = $20,000,000).

Anyway, looking at my ticket it was scheduled for Feb 28th, Friday. This would mean spending the weekend in Singapore plus 2-3 more days getting my paperwork sorted. We decided this just wasn’t the BootsnAll way to do it so I changed the date of my ticket at a Garuda office located in a big hotel next to Hard Rock Cafe. There was no charge and it took about 10 minutes.

I will now be leaving Bali on Feb 25th, tomorrow. We wanted to buy another ticket back to Bali and Garuda said it would be around $370! No thanks. There was a travel agent on the same floor so we visited them. The female employee was polite and tried to find us tickets that would fit our requirement for dates and times. I want to arrive in Singapore, go to the embassy, file papers and pick them up the next day…back to Bali. Arjuna Consultants gave me the phone number of an ‘agent’ in Singapore who can get the paperwork filed overnight…for a fee…instead of waiting 3 days. Another way for people to scam the system. Still, if you’ve got the money it can work for you. My flight leaves Denpasar at 6.40am and arrives in Singapore via Jakarta at 11.30am. Should be time to get to 007 and sort things out.

Changgi airport is on the subway system and I can get downtown fast. I’m hoping to meet up with Tan Wee Cheng, one of our most prolific writers while in town.

Needless to say buying the return ticket leaves us with an unused half of a ticket. We plan my next departure to be to either Bangkok or Australia so it’s going to happen anyway. The actual buying of the ticket included some of the ‘extras’ Asia can throw at you. Paying with a credit card means a fee and paying in dollars means a lousy (10% lower than they are worth rate, plus 3% charge) rate. We went with the credit card and agreed it’s better to do the sure thing now and get it sorted out. We also agreed we’re never coming back to Lila Tours Ltd after the way they jacked us on the extra fees.

Will be meeting up with Sima & Steve tonight and then heading to bed as I have to be at the airport at 4.30am.