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MALAYSIA

Mar
2004-09-14 16:33:03

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Muslim and so this country doesn’t brew it's own beer. Guinness, Tiger and Singha beer are all imports. One of the salesmen encourages me, "Try again and ask "How much?"'. This time the waiter immediately tells me the amount that I have to pay.

It is difficult to find a good road map in this area, but a large supermarket brings the solution. Finally we can make a plan for Malaysia. First we go to Georgetown, to apply for an Indonesian visa at the consulate. Indonesia changes its visa regulations from the 1st of February. So we have to organise our visa before that date. Then we will head for the centre of the peninsular and visit the tea estates, the mountainous area and head southwards to Singapore. This will take about three and half weeks, so we will reach Indonesia around the 8th of February.

After Alor Setar we take road no. 1 to Georgetown, the last English port, and reach it on Saturday. A colonial city on an island connected to the mainland by a car ferry (and a recently opened toll bridge). Here we are expecting to stay a couple of days waiting for our visa.

Changed visa regulations for Indonesia

The announcement had been made a couple of months ago. Indonesia is changing its visa regulations. It was/is very difficult to get up to date information about the new rules and when they will be applied. It seems so far that citizens from most European countries will need to apply for a visa before approaching the border; Holland is not on the list of 'visa on arrival' countries. What is more important for us at the moment is to find out if it is true that an application can take up to 10 days (like at the moment in The Netherlands) and if the visa will only be valid for 30 days without the possibility of extending (so we have to go later to Indonesia because we fly back on the 15th of March and have to race through the country). Monday morning ...