Sanur Dawn. (C) PJ Croft 2016

A frustrating day today, but we made a bit of progress. I need to get an extension on my Visa on Arrival, so it was off to the Kantor Imigrasi to start the process. It requires three visits: this first one to lodge the passport and papers (copies of documents) and to fill out the initial form.

Unfortunately we followed a web description and went to the office (Kantor) at Jimbaran, south of the airport. It cost a $12 taxi ride to get there, only to be told that as I was staying in Sanur, we had to apply at the Denpasar office. Journey wasted.

So it was off to Denpasar, this time fixed price $10. It was a magic day and I enjoyed the ride along the amazing concrete freeway across Benoa Bay. It’s a terrible thing, to have built this monstrosity over this beautiful bay, but it’s done and it cuts a lot of time off the trip. Today, I enjoyed the views of the mangroves and the fishing boats.

We got to the Denpasar office in time before their lunch break and I filled out the form we’d been given. I had all the photocopies of my passport etc, and my flight home on the 29th, so it was just a matter of handing them in, filling in another couple of forms and handing my passport over. I’m not too happy about that, but there’s no choice.

I was given a receipt (yipes, where is it?) and we were told to come back on 7 June for step 2, photograph and fingerprints.

Well, 7 June is the day before we’re due to check out of this hotel and, in theory, go back north. Obviously, that will have to be delayed. I should have started this process days earlier, but, y’know …

So since we’re not all that happy about this hotel, we’ve booked into my favourite, the Taksu for four more nights in Sanur, hoping the visa extension will be completed by then. We’ve reserved a big 40m2 room on the ground floor opening onto a patio with all the ferns and greenery, and next to the pool. It’s much bigger than this cramped room. We both love it and are looking forward to it, very much.

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We started to walk back along Jalan Danau Poso to this hotel, but we both felt the heat and some pain, so got a taxi the rest of the way. The meter showed Rp7000 and was still showing that when we got here, so I gave the guy double that, at least.

The street outside our hotel is blocked off for a temple festival in a day or so. Good! They’re playing a lot of gamelan music from the temple, but it’s only recorded stuff at the moment. I really hope for some full gamelan orchestra music. I love it.

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After a sleep and cool down, we’ve had a swim in the roof top pool and I was able to point out the Southern Cross, very clear in the southern sky. Nice!

Natural beauty. (C) PJ Croft 2016