Wednesday August 8, 2018
6:15 a.m. Room in the House, Griya Arida
Banda Aceh, Sumatra

My time in Kuala Lumpur passed easily. I ran some errands, met up with some friends, and bought a couple of items for my bike. Then it was time to head to the airport to catch my flight back to Banda Aceh. The flight went smoothly, though my arrival at the airport was a bit tricky. I’ll write more about that later. Aan picked me up at the airport and dropped me off back at the Griya Arida hotel. There, I had an unpleasant surprise.

I mentioned before that I had tried very hard to reserve a room at the Griya Arida for Tuesday, August 7, the date of my flight back. I was a bit worried about that because no one at the hotel wrote anything down or made any kind of a record of my reservation. The owner insisted that I NOT use Booking.com so that he wouldn’t have to pay the commission. So I made the reservation in person. However, as I feared, my reservation had fallen through the cracks. There was a big festival in Banda Aceh, and when I arrived with Aan, I was told that the hotel was fully booked. But, said the owner, I needn’t worry. He had a room for me in his  house.

My heart sank at this news. I had been looking forward to the awesome rooms at the Griya Arida, and I really didn’t want to be trapped inside this man’s house with his family. When you stay at a hotel, you are paying for the bed and the security and the bathroom, etc. But you are also paying for the sense of privacy and independence. This is your home for the night. It’s your place. You control it. You are free. I will pay for that. But I don’t want to pay if I’m staying in a room in your house.

As it turned out, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The room I was shown was clearly meant to be a hotel room. It wasn’t like their eldest son’s bedroom. It was similar to the rooms in the hotel building but they just happened to be inside his house. Even so, the door opens into their living room, and that is where the family sits to watch TV. I have to walk through their house to get to the front door to go in and out. Obviously, that is totally unacceptable.

They charged me the same high rate for this room, too. I thought the proper thing would be to offer me a discount even if it was just a token amount. But they implied that this room was actually better than the other rooms, and so by charging the same amount, it was a good deal for me. But I beg to differ. It’s not nearly as good as the other room I stayed in. There are no chairs and there is no long and tall dresser drawer. There is a small set of four drawers but every drawer is jammed with family bric-a-brac. There is a wardrobe, but the doors are all locked. I assume they are filled with the family’s clothes. I can hear a lot of noise through the door from the house itself – including a baby crying. The shower doesn’t really work, and I have to take a bucket bath just as I do at low-budget places. The toilet is quite stained and dirty. The WiFi doesn’t work in here either. And overall, it just feels like a bedroom and not a fancy hotel room. Anyway, I wasn’t happy to find myself in that situation particularly after working so hard – and failing – to reserve a room.

I seem to be striking a rather negative tone here, and I hate to say it, but the negative features of this return to Banda Aceh extend to the airport and immigration as well. The airport had struck me as a small and informal kind of place when I flew out. And that impression was reinforced when we landed and we all crowded into the small immigration area. There were only two immigration desks and two clerks working. One was for Indonesians, and the other was for all foreigners. There were a surprising number of Malaysians on this flight, so the Malaysians plus the Western foreigners arriving for a beach holiday amounted to a very large group, and it was clear that it was going to take the one immigration officer a long time to deal with us. I reflected that it was a good thing that I told Aan to come at 4:30 to pick me up. It was looking like it would take me at least that long to get through immigration, and perhaps longer.

My first stop, however, was the Visa-On-Arrival counter, where a group of perhaps twenty foreigners were already standing in line. I think most of them had no idea what they were doing. They were here just for a short holiday, and they didn’t need an extendable visa. They could get the 30-day visa-free entry. But they didn’t know that. In fact, I didn’t see anyone hand over the $35 to get the VOA. Everyone ahead of me in line was dealt with quickly and told to just go stand in the regular line. I was the last person, and I think I was the only one to actually get the VOA. The young man at the window was surprised when I told him what I wanted and that I seemed to understand the system and what I was talking about. I told him that I was going to stay for 58 days, so I needed the VOA so that I could extend it one time. He asked me a few questions just to make sure that I really did need the VOA, and then he accepted my $35 and took my passport. I have no idea what he did down there at his desk, but it took him a very long time to eventually hand back my passport. And all he did, really, was hand me a receipt for my $35. He didn’t give me the visa sticker or do anything else. So I have no clue what took so long.

It didn’t matter, though, because the main lineup hadn’t moved an inch in all that time. The problem was that the immigration officer was subjecting everyone to a very long and intense verbal scrutiny. I was a bit concerned to see this, and I was even more concerned that a good half of the Westerners were sent to an immigration office for further interviews. I saw a lot of panicked faces and a lot of worried faces and I witnessed a lot of arguing between the foreigners and the local immigration officers. Papers were being produced. Websites were being called up on smartphones. A lot was going on. It appeared that entering through the Banda Aceh airport was very different from entering through the Medan airport. These were serious dudes.

I was, again, the very last person in line, and the immigration officer took just a brief glance at my passport, heaved a sigh, and then waved over his superiors for a consultation. I have no idea what they talked about since it was in Indonesian, but he asked me a bunch of questions about what I was doing and where I was staying in Banda Aceh. Oddly enough, he never asked about a flight out of the country. I had my fake flight in my hand, and I was ready to hand it over, but the subject never came up.

Two things seemed to be in my favor. One was that I had the business card for the Griya Arida hotel. I handed that over when they asked me where I was staying. They trotted over to their office with my passport and this business card, and I think they called the hotel and asked if I had a reservation there. The other thing in my favor was that I had purchased the $35 visa-on-arrival. This was a completed transaction, and it was done at a different window and perhaps computer records had been kept about this. And for them to deny me entry or cause trouble, they would have to reverse that purchase or cancel it or do something equally complex. Since I purchased the visa and had the receipt, the easiest path for them was simply to grant me the visa along with a stern lecture.

The lecture was all about how I was supposed to get my visa before I came to Indonesia. They knew I had flown from Malaysia, and they told me that I was supposed to go to the embassy in Kuala Lumpur and get my visa there. Then there would be no problem. They were quite stern about this and seemed very angry with me. I had the urge to argue with them and explain that I DID go to the Indonesian consulate in Penang (though on previous trips), and they turned all foreigners away, telling us that we had to get the visa at the airport. The embassy tells us to get the visa at the airport. And here at the airport you are telling me to get it at the embassy. So, which is it?

Luckily, before they went on this long and severe lecture, they told me that they were going to give me the visa and let me in this time, but NEXT time, I had to go the embassy. So, basically, I had already won the battle. And since I had won, there was nothing to be gained by arguing. I could only make things worse. So I said “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I will do that, sir. I’m very sorry.” etc. I agreed with everything and nodded my head and looked contrite. The first immigration officer then took out a big stack of visa stickers, peeled one off, and stuck it in my passport. As I was leaving, I noticed that he had not written the number 30 in the space where it said this visa was valid for ____ days. I almost went back to point out this oversight, but I just wanted to get out of there. These visa stickers were always for 30 days, so I don’t think it matters.

Once I was past immigration, I found myself right back at nearly the end of a huge lineup at customs. I was at the end of the line for immigration, and it had taken a long time to finally get my visa, so I thought the airport would be empty by then. But most of the flight hadn’t even made it through customs yet. It was crazy slow.

While I waited at the end of this line, a few other foreigners started to trickle in behind me. These were the people who had been sent to the office for longer interviews. I spoke to a few of them, and their stories were all the same. The main problem was that they did not have a flight out of Indonesia. They were all staying for less than thirty days, so they wanted the thirty-day visa-free entry. But, as I experienced in Medan, when you get that stamp, they always want to see proof of a flight out of the country. It’s strange, but when you say you want to stay for sixty days and get the VOA, they don’t always ask for proof of a flight out.

All these foreigners must not have been very experienced at this sort of thing, because they were all surprised and upset and even angry. They didn’t know how long they would be staying in Indonesia. They were on holiday and feeling relaxed and good. They figured they’d play it by ear and book a flight when they decided to leave. They might decide they want to fly to Bali or Sulawesi or Lombok. So why book a flight now when they don’t know where they’re going to go next? So they weren’t prepared when they were told they had to have a flight out.

I saw huddled groups of foreigners all over the arrivals area with their phones out. And it was clear that they were all booking flights online on their phones. And when that was done, they went up to immigration and showed them the booking on their phones. From the customs area, I could look back through the doors to the immigration area, and I saw a few foreigners still in the interrogation room. I never spoke to them, so I don’t know what the problem was, but it’s a good guess that these people were digging in their heels and refusing to book a flight or they simply didn’t have the ability to do so and were arguing their case. Maybe they never booked flights on smartphone apps or they didn’t have a credit card or didn’t even have a phone. In any event, some poor foreigners were still stuck there in limbo as I finally put my bags through the X-ray machine at customs to leave the airport.

And that’s more or less the end of my arrival story. I did have coffee with Aan after I checked into my room. And I tried to get a better understanding of his life, but it was pretty hard to do. I think I get the basic idea. He’s a freelance media personality, performer, and public figure. And he has taken this public profile and turned it into a side business as what they call an “influencer” these days. He builds up a social media presence and then sells that to companies that he represents. They pay him or give him free stuff to promote their companies. He also seems to play a role in managing the social media presence of certain companies. He showed me the Instagram page of a local water company that he manages. He talked about how he would have an idea, and he would tell his team about this idea, and they would put together an Instagram post or social media campaign. I have no idea who this team is and how it works. I didn’t really understand anything he said, but I kind of got the drift.

The plan is to stay here in Banda Aceh for one more day and a night. And I will meet Aan for lunch today. Then I’ll hit the road. I thought about going to the backpacker/tourist spot Pulau Weh. But my experience at the airport changed my mind. I didn’t want to join the large groups of foreigners all going to the same place. Pulau Weh is mainly a beach place, and I experienced plenty of awesome beaches on the way up the west coast. But it was mainly the reaction I got from the Indonesians at the airport that changed my mind. Elsewhere in Sumatra, I’m treated as just a person. But at the airport, I was treated as a tourist or ATM machine. Everyone who spoke to me was offering me some kind of service for money, and they were asking me about my plans because they all have contacts on Pulau Weh for beach resorts, diving companies, etc. and they were hoping to act as my guide or get commissions for stuff. It just felt weird. So I decided I don’t want to do the thing that everyone expects me to do – go to the tourist island. I might regret not going, but we’ll see.

Tags: Banda Aceh, bike tour, Bike Trip, Indonesia, Sumatra