31st May 2005 - JAKARTA Due to our own stupidity our day is now devoted to visiting the Indonesian Immigration Office. All we need to do is get an extention on our visa's according to Priscilla, this should be a fairly simple procedure. Afterall, this is a 3rd worl country (Priscilla's words not ours) and anything is possible..........for a price! Heru, who works at Tamara's was instructed by Priscilla to escort us to the office. We thought he would take us in the car....au contraire!!! TODAY WE WILL BE TRAVELLING WITH THE LOCALS!!! As the timy red 8 seater van pulls up we can see there is already 10 people on board. I was quite happy to wait for the next one but to my surprise, Heru climbs into the back and Sig and I are instructed to sit up front with the driver. 1 small seat for 2 rather peachy rears. Its not Arriva thats for sure! The red van collects and drops off people wherever they want for about 7p. There's no bus stops so people bang the roof or shout when they want to get off. Not only were we cramped in to 1 seat, I was also in charge of collecting the fares for the driver. After a scarey 5 minute journey we up grade to a slightly bigger bus. As I said before, there are no bus stops. So you just have to flag them down, an easy task you may think, not when you are standing on the side of the motorway and the bus is in the fast lane!! The bus stopped for us and some how Heru managed to stop the traffic so we could dash across the road and on to the bus. This is absolute madness! and we are so thankful to have Heru with us. We could have taken a taxi but that would be too easy. At this point I will just explain a bit about the traffic here in Jakarta. Traffic can consist of Lorries, vans, buses, motorbikes with 4 people on, push bikes ridden by mothers carrying their babies whilst pedalling, men pushing carts of rubbish or other item, goats and the odd cow. After about an hour, we finally arrive at the Immigration office. We are met by a huge caged cockerill, this country gets stranger and stranger. Heru does all the talking and we are handed some papers to fill out. It is only when we have finished that we find out they cannot help us. We are instructed to go to the office at the airport. And so the journey continues, a taxi, a bus, and a motorbike later we arrive at the airport immigration. AND YES YOU DID HEAR ME RIGHT A MOTORBIKE. There was no other way. In Asia they have motorbike taxi's and so a convoy of 3 motorbikes with 1 very scared girl made there way 500 m down the road to the office. For 5 minutes I had a very close cuddle with my rider. It was only when we got to our final destination and he revealed his face from underneath his helmet that I saw his true beauty..... as he smiled he revealed his 1 tooth and Quasi Modo like features. Only a mother could love a man like that! To cut a very long story short..... they told us to piss off out of their country. We had 3 choices....stay and pay a 40$ fine per day until the 10th (which was when our flight was due). Or spend a brief period in a detention centre. Or the possibilty of being banned from the country for life. We chose to pay the fine and thanks to Lucy Mac arranged new fligth time for 3rd June. As for now.... I'm an alien, I'm an illegal alien...I'm an English girl in Jakarta!!! Roll on Australia!!!