The Martlet

Of all my travels in the last year, my journey from Bangkok to Bali was the most complicated of all my border exchanges. Sure, going from Thailand to Laos it was discovered I had been living illegally in the country for 12 days, and going from Laos to Cambodia I had a lot of trouble explaining my black eye and right ankle limp, but the incident in Indonesia — that was a whole new level.

Exhausted from four days alone in Bangkok, I was eager to meet my friends in Bali. I arrived at the Jakarta airport (my stopover en route) at two in the morning only to find out I absolutely could not buy my entrance Visa with Thai baht.

“That will be 300,000 rupiah,” the officer told me.

“What are rupiah?”

“Indonesian currency.”

“I don’t have any of those.”

“You still need to pay.”

“I have Thai baht?”

“No.”

“Cambodian riel?”

“No.”

“Canadian dollars?”

“No.”

And on and on it went. No matter what I tried to explain, they border patrol offiers couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t be carrying around Indonesian rupiah. How the heck was I supposed to know — and how did all these other travellers know?

Guess I shouldn’t have used my Lonely Planet as toilet paper.

The trouble was, I had no other means to pay. Less than a week before, I had been robbed on the beaches of Cambodia. I was just minding my business, tanning myself in the sand when I was surrounded by a group of local children.

“Where you from?” they asked.

“I’m from Canada,” I told them.

“The capital of Canada is Ottawa,” a small boy piped up.

How clever!

“I’m from England,” the man next to me added.

“David Beckham, David Beckham!” they chirped.

Brilliant — I was impressed.

I smiled and asked questions and they dazzled me with their knowledge. Little did I realize as I learned about Canada’s history, a child was stealing my wallet. Including my debit card. And my credit card. And my secret picture of Zac Efron.

I should have known not to trust a child who knew more about Canada than I did.

Seeing as I had no acceptable currency, immigration figured there was only one sensible thing to do — put me in a holding cell. There I sat, terrified, surrounded by cement walls and low lighting. I felt like I was in one of those horror stories you hear about smuggling drugs in Southeast Asia, only I didn’t have a kilo of crack up my bum. Soon I was being interrogated by the head of immigration (yes, that was a gun in his pocket), and questioned as to why I was unable to buy my Visa. Why didn’t I have a credit card? Why didn’t I exchange my money before I left? Why did I have such an unattractive sunburn?

Finally, after they could see I wasn’t some scheming criminal (was it my sundress or my cardigan that gave it away?), someone suggested they take my baht across the border, exchange it, then bring it back to me so I could pay in rupiah.

Well, duh. For people who are supposed to be voice of immigration authority you’d really think this would have come up sooner.

After the exchange worked perfectly, the boys from Immo were suddenly my buddies. We had a chuckle — they asked me where I was from, what my plans were, what I was taking in school. Things were going great until I mentioned my eight-hour layover, and it was then proposed that I could just spend the night at one of their houses, you know, as a thank you for helping me out. Oh, for the love of God.

I quickly declined and instead hauled my human-sized bag the three kilometers to the next terminal where I had to sleep outside, on the pavement, on top of my bag because the airport didn’t open till six in the morning. I had such a bad sleep I couldn’t help but think I should have just taken the Immo guys up on their offer.

Only kidding, Mom. Don’t have a heart attack.