Colossal disaster

This morning I was planning on going to a small Indonesian island about an hour from Singapore to hike a mountain. I didn't plan well. I arrived at the ferry terminal just a tad too late for the 930 ferry so had to take the 1050 one. On the way, I realized my sunglasses broke. Wouldn't be a big deal if I hadnt made a special effort to get these sunglasses.

Anyway I get on the ferry and all's well. Until I get to Indonesia. I had read you can get a visa on arrival there, but nowhere did it say it cost $25. I had some cash but not enough and of course they don't take credit cards. So a guard had to escort me out of immigration to the ATM. He told me 150000 rupias was $25 so I got 200000 and went back to the visa desk. Here I find that it is 250000; so I basically thre the remaining Singapore dollars I had and told the lady that's all I got. She gave me the visa and rolled her eyes, but I think I actually overpaid. Whatever.

At this point I figured I'd better go ahead and organize my return trip. I'm told I need to pay $7 departure fee. And again they don't take credit cards so I had to scrounge up what random money I had (including Malaysian ringgits!) to get some rupia to pay to leave!! Ok done.

Next I realize that we didn't land in the port I thought we did and it was going to take a long taxi ride and money I didn't have to get where I wanted to go. I asked information what was to see within walking distance and he pointed to the mall. Which is where I am now, eating some vegetarian meal listening to the terrible and loud cover band playing Killing Me Softly (more like Loudly), waiting to leave this island and annoyed that I wasted a whole passport page on an Indonesia visa!! I'm not quite at the point where I can laugh about this yet.