04-Visa Application
We take for granted how easy it is to travel wherever we want, whenever you want having a British passport. One of the reasons for travelling to Jakarta was to help Wimmy get her UK Visa, so she can go to London to do her internship. The level of information and personal information that an Indonesian needs to travel abroad is astonishing. For Indonesians to visit western countries they need:
1. Bank Statements to prove they can support themselves whilst abroad
2. A letter of sponsorship from a sponsor (eg. Me)
3. Copy of Passport from the sponsor
4. Bank statements of the sponsor
5. Copy of payslips for the sponsor
6. +interviews etc
That’s pretty hard work.
So rather than send the personal information via email, a day was spent doing the visa application. The busway takes us to the centre, where we both take mopeds through the mad traffic to the visa application centre. Riding along hundreds of other mopeds, ducking and diving between taxis and 4x4s dodging oblivious pedestrians, and hearing the whine of a little scooter motor, and the smell of car fumes, the moped ride itself was quite the experience.
Central Jakarta is a mecca of traffic, and bizarre mix of old world charm on the street and a city yearning to be modern aspiring to the bling bling riches of the west.
The visa application was relatively straight forward, I bought my paperwork, she brought hers, and we both smiled at the immigration officer. Next when all was submitted, she to have her biometric data encoded: finger prints and an Iris scan. Gosh the visa business has gone all high tech, with a payment of around 65GBP, the process seemed relatively smooth. Now it’s a case of sit and wait. “Hope for the best and plan for the worst” as Wimmy once said.
Getting a UK Visa though, means that she can only go to the UK, and not roam around Europe. For the whole of Europe Indonesians need to get a separate European visa. Count ourselves so free and lucky in the west!
We spend the rest of the evening having coffee and going to the Angels and Demons at the cinema afterwards. It was a pleasant “hanging out” and “getting to know each other” time, though I still wish we could have ridden that helter skelter slide down the middle of the skyscraper.
You can find food, anywhere in Jakarta: We walk to a car park somewhere near a main road, and find a few random mobile kitchens, with a few tables and stools. The food, though does look a bit dodgy, was pretty good, cheap and tasty. 50,000 rupiah got us a taxi back to the south, as at 10pm the busways close. A day spent of a little fun and adventure with Wimmy, happy memories and thoughts !-)
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