An Immigration Adventure!

The immigration process in Indonesia has been a nightmare adventure!  When entering the country, each person is able to get a 30 day Visa on Arrival (for a fee, of course).  This can be extended once for an additional 30 days (and an additional fee).  Once this is ready to expire, you must leave the country and start again (you also get to pay a fee if you want to LEAVE the country).  I'm not sure how long you can continue doing this every 60 days before the Indonesian government final says enough and doesn't let you back in.  Regardless, Emilie's school requires a KITAS (a one year, multi entry Visa).  So, shortly after arriving in Indonesia, we set out on the process to obtain a KITAS for each of us.  During this process, we were required to leave the country twice, surrender our passports in Singapore to the Indonesian Embassy for a day, surrender our Passports to the Indonesian government in Indonesia for a week, go down to the immigration office (twice because the computers went down the first time), get turned away on our second visit because we were not following the dress code (no shorts, no skirts, no flip-flops, no t-shirts, no tank tops), get hustled down an alley to a little lean-to store to get appropriate attire, barely make it back to the Immigration office in time for our appointment, get finger-printed and our pictures taken, sign a million documents in Bahasa Indonesia (Dad, I might need some legal advice if I ever find out what it was we signed), and FINALLY, we were given our KITAS Visas!  We are now, legally, allowed to stay in Indonesia until next November (and Emilie is not going to get kicked out of school). While the process was quite the headache adventure, we did get two trips to Singapore out of the deal and we are all learning some great life lessons (patience, expect the unexpected, if it can go wrong - it will go wrong, etc.) so all in all, we have enjoyed the frustration adventure of dealing with immigration issues!