In Other Words

Warning, Rant

I am truly impressed with Indonesian incompetence. I didn’t know it was possible to be as completely useless as they are, while still managing to maintain independence. Maybe they are independent because nobody wants them anymore. ‘That bunch of corrupt idiots who can’t even spell ‘I’ correctly? Beautiful country, shame about the people, nuke ‘em. Its for their own good, at least then they will have a chance in a few thousand years.’

Why am I ranting at the Indonesians? Well, it was the plan to go to Batam this weekend, but that has gone up in smoke due to some unforeseen circumstances. The initial problem was of my own making, I had forgotten that they had recently started an anti tourist policy, whereby they try to make everybody pay lots of money to enter the country, so that they go elsewhere instead (I think it’s a plot by the Malaysians).

As you can guess from the ‘was the plan’ from above, their plan has succeeded admirably, as I’m now no longer going. We’ve been working since yesterday to get the bastard thing resolved (so that I would have a visa), but it was all for naught.

First off, the embassy maintains the public holidays from back home (Logical enough, after all everybody should know when the Indonesians have public holidays) so we couldn’t call them. Well, we could, but the pre recorded voice ignored our question.

So we tried other avenues to find out what the policy was. Now a very interesting thing happened. Have you ever heard of ‘put a hundred people in a room and you’ll have a hundred and one opinions’? Well, we found out that was wrong, its actually closer to infinity plus one.

This travel agent said ‘it normally takes three days and costs 90 dollars, but it can be done in one for an extra hundred dollars’. Another person says ‘oh, Bintan and Batam are different! Can just go across, show up at the stamp control place and they will let you in. They don’t want to kill their tourist industry, you see.’ Then there is the ‘it will only take an afternoon, no problem, just go down to the embassy before three’. Then there was the ‘you don’t need anything! Don’t worry, its all good’. Then there was the ‘you’ll need three working days, a photo, seventy dollars, a passport that will last for six months and a soft floppy pink dildo’. Unfortunately, that last one was the actual Indonesian embassy.

The worst case scenario, of course. Especially since I wanted to go tomorrows with all my friends (and a soft floppy, pink dildo at this hour? I can’t give mine, I've chewed on it).

So I’ve decided to say ‘Indonesia, you have converted me successfully! I will avoid your shores, like the plague. If you charge me money, that sucks, but I can survive that, if you want to make me wait, that sucks even more, but I’ll live with that (especially if extra money makes the wait shorters) but if you can’t even release a press statement that makes sure everybody knows what the hell is going on, then may yea all be buggered.’

Malaysia, truly asia! (better known as ‘hey, don’t forget about us! If none of the other countries want you, we’re still here! Well, except for if your Israeli, Israeli baaaaaad!’)

posted by Symbol @ 4.6.04