Friday, March 11, 2016

8:10 a.m. Room 7, Tamariah Losmen

Sumatra

It’s a bit later in the morning for my journal session. That is because I have no need to go to immigration this morning. My passport is sitting in some pile somewhere in their offices waiting to be dealt with. Hopefully they put an extension stamp in it and then I can pick it up on Monday. So I’ve got three days to wait.

It’s also later this morning because I was quite sick throughout the night. I lost count of the number of times I was doubled over with cramps and had to race to the bathroom. It wasn’t much fun. I didn’t get much sleep, and so I stayed in bed this morning as long as I could. Hopefully, the worst of this particular stomach upset is over. I’m hoping it is just the inevitable result of gorging on fried snacks for the last two days. Remind me never to do that again. If some kind people give me a huge care-package of goodies to take with me, I should wait until I’m out of sight and then feed it to the birds.

My living conditions improved because I took a chance and opened the windows to my room. I had kept them closed previously for fear of mosquitoes. But the room got extremely hot, and it was uncomfortable most of the time. I have a small fan running non-stop, but even with that, I’d be sweating like crazy just sitting on my bed. Everything changed once I opened the windows. This city is at a high enough altitude that it gets cool at night. With the windows open, the room temperature dropped considerably and I stopped sweating. And the higher altitude seems to mean fewer mosquitoes as well. In any event, I didn’t notice any last night. I was likely bitten once or twice, but I didn’t notice and they didn’t keep me awake. Perhaps today, I’ll set up my mosquito net. I was in so much pain last night, that I was not in the mood to spend the time putting the net up.

The big adventure yesterday was simply going to immigration and applying for the tourist visa extension. Things seem to have worked out in the end, but it was close. It was almost a disaster. It makes me ponder again the strange feelings that come with being overseas. It’s weird, from a certain angle, to think that I need to ask for permission to be on this piece of land. To simply exist here and be here, I need a little stamp in my passport. This is true for all of the land in the entire world except for the big chunk of land we call Canada. I can physically be there, and no one can challenge me. I never have to ask for permission to be standing on that land. I know that we have countries and national borders and immigration laws, etc. I’m thinking on a level above that, on more of a philosophical level. Out of all the land on the planet, only that chunk between Halifax and Vancouver is open to me without permission. It’s a strange concept when you stop and really think about it.

When you run into problems with immigration in other countries, you sometimes have this urge to just give up. You guys don’t want me here? Fine. I’ll go back to my own country. I’ll go back to Canada, where I never have to ask for permission to exist. There’s a stress level that comes with being away from your own country. I felt it even when I was living in Taiwan and had a proper work visa and all the other documents. Getting that work visa wasn’t easy, and it was like a living, breathing creature that had to be fed with effort and money all the time. Every few months, it seemed like I was making another trip to another government office to fill out more forms and wait in more lines and pay more fees. The problem is that even your work visa is not separate. It is connected with your passport. And if your passport expires, then everything connected to it expires, and all the documents have to be updated and replaced.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

8:45 a.m Room 7, Tamariah Losmen

Siantar, Sumatra

Not much to say this morning either. The headline news is that I’m still very sick, and that limited my movements yesterday. It’s difficult to get up the energy to go exploring when you could be doubled over with stomach cramps at any moment. It’s also risky. Chances are extremely high there would be no available bathroom nearby. So you end up staying in your room where the bathroom is just a short distance away and you can quickly hobble there as the need arises.

However, I did have a rather pressing need, and that was to get money. When I arrived in Siantar, I spotted a large branch of the BCA Bank, and I made a note of it. In Tanjungbalai, that was the only bank with ATMs that would accept my CIBC bank card. All the other ATMs spit it out and canceled the transaction. I was told at that time that the BCA Bank was the best one for international transactions. So I made the effort to go to the BCA Bank yesterday afternoon during a period in which I wasn’t feeling that bad. I decided to walk instead of ride my bike. It’s kind of sad, but it turns out that walking is a far more pleasant activity in Indonesia than riding a bike. On a bike, I’m stressed out and upset. On foot, it’s much more pleasant.

I had to go all the way downtown and to the far end of one of the one-way streets that make up the city’s core. The area I passed through was much more interesting than I realized. I had cycled that street, but I had to keep a constant eye on traffic and I was moving relatively quickly, so I didn’t really see much. On foot, I found myself in very interesting market areas, and I spotted all kinds of enticing things. It made me think about returning with my camera—assuming my stomach will allow it.

I had a bit of trouble at the bank. I nervously inserted my ATM card, and entered my details, and the ATM spit my card out. It wouldn’t accept it. I tried again with the same result. Then, even more nervously, I tried a second ATM. This one also spit out my card and canceled the transaction. Now I was really nervous. If this was the only bank that would accept my card, and now it wouldn’t accept it anymore, I’d be stuck. I still had enough US cash that I could change that and get by for the next month or two before returning to Malaysia, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to try again, but I was scared that if I put my card into too many ATMs, the system would red flag the transaction as fraudulent and my account would be frozen and my card retained. I assume it’s like entering the incorrect password on the Internet too many times. Eventually, you’ll get frozen out.

In an unlikely move for me, I went inside the bank and asked for help. I generally find people in nearly every situation to be more hindrance than help. Asking for help just leads to a waste of time at best and a disaster at worst. I was originally assisted by a lovely and friendly young woman. She took my debit card and brought it to someone further up the chain—an equally friendly young man. This young man did a lot of investigating. He even got on the phone and called people. He came to a conclusion, and he said that there shouldn’t be a problem using my card, and that I should just try it again. I expressed my concerns about that, and he said not to worry.
So we went to a third ATM, and I inserted my card, and boom, it worked. Nothing had changed, but it worked. The young man told me that sometimes the computers just had trouble communicating with each other and establishing a solid connection. If the connection gets broken, the transaction is canceled. So the only remedy is to keep trying until it works. Unfortunately, there is a limit to the amount you can withdraw. I will have to return again to withdraw more money to have enough to last me my time in Indonesia, however long that will be.

After that, I tracked down a place where I could buy a new SIM card with new data credit. That was relatively easy to do. One can buy SIM cards just about anywhere. For me, it was a matter of scanning the various businesses and the people working there and selecting one that felt right. I bought another “3” network SIM with 8 gigabytes of data for 120,000 rupiah. The clerk at the store inserted the card for me and set it up. I still haven’t managed to get a rational answer to my question about this. The problem is that every time you get a new SIM, you get a new phone number. So wouldn’t it make more sense just to buy more data? It must make life difficult if all of your friends keep changing their phone number. Immigration, for example, kept asking for my phone number. But it won’t do them any good, I told them, because I would be buying a new SIM the next day, and I would have a new phone number. I keep asking about this but no one has been able to grasp the nature of my question or answer it.

People on the street responded to me quite strongly. It was clear that they rarely see a foreigner just walking around. I had to respond to lots of greetings, and I took a variety of selfies. I stopped for a meal (decided to take a chance) at a pangsit restaurant, and I ended my meal by posing for pictures with the owner. After my meal, which seemed overpriced, I walked back to the losmen and settled in for the night. I don’t think anything else of note took place except for the constant rushed trips to the bathroom. Plus, there was a mosquito in my room, and I decided to put up my mosquito net. It took some ingenuity to find four attachment points for the four corners of my net, but it worked out.

 

Tags: Sumatra Part 01