Travelling through Indonesia
 

When travelling through Indonesia, has anyone recently had their carnet or insurance checked other than point of entry or exit? The reason I ask, I have a Malaysian registered bike, which I am entitled to travel to Sumatra without a carnet, however no further, i.e. Java and beyond.

However, if no one appears to check for a carnet whilst in the country, I'm tempted to enter Sumatra and head for East Timor, pleading ignorance at the border exit. I've checked with the East Timor Embassy, apparently it is possible to apply for a temporary import permit when entering.

Any information greatly received.

Hamish

[This message has been edited by Em & Hame (edited 23 January 2006).]

We only got stopped once by cops in Indonesia. They weren't interested in Carnet or insurance (they couldn't read the Carnet & I didn't have insurance).
The only peice of paperwork they seemed interested in was a letter we were given by the Police at our point of entry authorising us to travel through whichever islands we listed. That maybe a problem for you of course....

After processing our Carnet the Customs officer took us to the police station and they asked us where we wanted to go then typed up a letter saying we could go there.

I don't know how you would get on trying to get them to type up a letter allowing you to travel further than Sumatra - however they were asking for gifts. I chose to refuse to give them one but in your case you might be tempted to.....

[This message has been edited by parkie (edited 23 January 2006).]

Hi Richard,

Is a carnet mandatory in Indonesia then?

Thanks for the info Richard, it would appear that once in the country, as long as I can get a letter from the police listing where we intend to travel, all should be ok. Although it goes against the grain, as you suggest, a 'gift' or two may swing it for us.

Meanwhile, I've made contact with a helpful Indonesian biker who has passed on a couple of contacts in Medan whom should be able to assist.

As is always the case in Asia; anything is possible, nothings for certain!

Hi,

Entering in Dumai a year or two ago, is was the other way around.... The police and customs gave us "gifts" like food and drinks.

My "police permit" was (my mistake) only valid as far as Bali.... but leaving Timor (to Timor este) they only requested me to be more carefull next time I visited.

Maybe I was lucky, but I never met a Indonesian who wanted money for asistance or oficial buisness....

The postoffice in Kupang (Timor) even had a guy pick my mail from a ferry in flores in the middle of the night, to put it in a plane so I would get it on time.

Only lovely people there!!

Maarten


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- www.maartensworld.com -

Yep, Carnet required for Indonesia - of course different scenario for Hamish with Malaysian rego.

I agree with Maarten - everyone at Customs and Police all very friendly and relaxed and many cups of coffee, etc. Still asked for a present though - as an aside, just hopeful I think. So this could well be the best option for Hamish, eh?

I have a locally registered bike so I'm not too sure about a Carnet and insurance but I've driven quite a few places in Indonesia and have only ever been stopped in Java and Bali. These were just customary checks for local registered bikes and not really checkpoints like other countries.

I've also driven all through Aceh and have only been stopped once at night at a checkpoint and when I took my helmet off and they saw I was a foreigner, I was waived straight through.

[This message has been edited by lladnar1 (edited 25 January 2006).]

BTW, I've taken the ferry between Sumatra and Java and am fairly certain they won't check there. Same between Java and Bali, and Bali and Lombok. Can't help you past there.

we're making our way through indonesia at the moment..we entered at belawan sumatra and have made it as far as bali.. so far without any official hitches.
We do not have the letter from customs that parkie mentions..we were given a sticker for the bike but we've never been able to find out what it is .. it seems to be some sort of permit issued by the north sumatran transport police..all the police we have encountered havent asked to see our carnet and don't seem to have a clue what we should have document wise and have shown little interest in our sticker thing..... most just wave us on..

we'll just hope that things continue this way.....we'll let you know if we come across any problems..or find out what the stickers all about.

Sounds good, thanks to all for the info.

Jim'n'Lisa, how did you get on with the Indo visa? We've been up to the Embassy in KL to apply for 2 months which was flatly refused, despite posts to the conterary. Perhaps we can extend along the way if neccessary.

Hamish

BUGGER. The Indonesian consulate in Penang was also issuing 2 month visas when we went through, wouldn't issue one however without a ferry ticket from Penang across....

We met one couple who got their visas extended in Bali with the aid of baksheesh, another alternative is to do a cheap flight to Singapore or somewhere else and get another tourist visa on arrival. The bike details were not entered in our passports so this should not be a problem.

Hiya,

Re the visa situation...

In March 2005 we tried getting a 2 month visa in Penang, and were told that it would be "considered" if we had a ticket out of Indonesia. Obviously we didn't as we were heading for East Timor, then Darwin but no amount of explaining this to the clerk made any difference except for us to get extremely frustrated!

So, we got our return ferry tickets planning to just bin the return, from memory it was about 30 pounds we wasted. We decided to head down to KL and apply there (we got bad vibes from the lady in Penang!) and then head off around the country for a couple of weeks and pick the visas up on our return.

In KL we were told that if we had a letter of recommendation from an Indonesian resident, then we could have a two month visa... So I contacted a colleague of my Dad who lives there, and he e-mailed a letter and copy of his Indonesian ID and we applied for the visa. We were then told that since we had the letter, we didn't need the return ticket!

When we went back to Penang to ship the bikes, we tried to cash in the return ticket, but were told that we couldn't until we had used the outgoing ticket... but it had to be cashed in at their Penang office!!

Confused?

So, if you can get a letter of recommendation before applying (remember to get the copy of their ID) then hopefully you should be able to get a 2 month visa. Someone in the Indonesian Community may be able to help you with this.

We used nearly the whole two months to get from Belawan to Kupang, and it felt like we were rushing it a bit, so hopefully you will manage to get one. It's such an awesome country.

BTW. We didn't have the permit that has been mentioned in this post, and we did use the carnet.

Good Luck

Jacqui and Trent