Indonesian Visa in Vanimo

Hello all,

Has anoyone had any recent experience of getting an indonesian visa in Vanimo? Can you get a transit visa (i will only be in Indonesia for 3 days after leaving PNG)

If anyone has got one recently can you let me know costs and timescales - this is what i am worried about as i don't have long to wait around for a visa!!!

Thanks,
Kim

Not recent, but this seems to be pretty stable.
The consulate in Vanimo issues tourist visas (possibly still only 30 day ones) within a day, sometimes the same day. I don't think they can give you a transit visa, but why would that matter? To save 15 USD, after a trip in PNG? ;-)
They do ask to see your ticket out of Indonesia though.
Ideally you should get this visa when you first arrive in Vanimo - they may not be open during Indonesian and PNG public holidays, and of course on week-ends.

end of march it was 70 Kina ( about 25 USD ). I also stayed just 2 or 3 days in west papua after that but I had to pay the fee for the 30-days visa.
applying and getting the visa was very straight-forward and relaxed, it took just a couple of hours. and if it takes longer for any reason, dont worry - vanimo is a nice place to hang around for a couple of days with incredibly friendly and hospitable people.

Hi guys,

Thanks for the info - i'm almost at the point where i can stop worrying about logistics in PNG!!!

I will try and get the new Indo visa when we first arrive - hopefully should be able to do this

Thanks again,
Kim

I'd only stop worrying once I have the PNG visa in my passport.
And do note the potential trouble mentioned by that other poster regarding leaving Indo through the land border on a VOA. To be on the safer side it might be worth getting an Indo visa in advance, too.

Just wondered if anyone new if the visa for Indonesia from Vanimo was valid from issue date or "good to enter" within 2 months?

I have never seen an Indonesian visa that was valid from the date of issue, they always tend to be valid for entry within 3 months of date of issue, and then for 30 or 60 days' stay.

thanks for the info - much appreciated :)

Really useful info for me too! Thanks! I'm will be crossing from Vanimo to Jayapura in mid-October 2009.

My schedule is tight (two days contigency in Vanimo to get visa etc sorted) - which isn't ideal, but I wanted to confirm a few things:

1. I assume turning up with a UK passport (I'm a Brit citizen) in the Indonesian Consulate in Vanimo is fine - that is people who have been quoting 1-2 day turnarounds are not from countries with a special arrangement with Indonesia? Do I need to take anything else apart from my passport (photographs,onward travel evidence, etc)? Can anyone with a UK (or EU) passport confirm this is easy to do?

2. When people talk about visa turnaround of 1-2 days will these visas allow me to exit Indonesia via a different border. My plan is to go Vanimo-Jayapura-Bali-UK. Am I right in thinking the 30 day visa they will issue at the Vanimo consulate is good to exit Indonesia at Bali with? I have read a few people saying this may be a problem? Again, has anyone used a Vanimo issued visa to exit at a different border other than Vanimo?

3. Will my visa be validated at the border point itself or do I still need to go to the police station in Jayapura after crossing the border to get my visa stamped/validated/etc. Lonely Planet guide mentions this?

4. If I decide that 1-2 days is just too tight. If instead I go to the Indonesian embassy in London tomorrow and just apply for a 60-day tourist visa, will this be accepted as valid at the land border at Jayapura? I have heard people say you need specifically to get a visa at the Vanimo consulate? Has anyone used a visa issued in the UK (or similar) to enter Indoensia at Jayapura?

5. Is it true that the London consulate may be 'funny' about me using the visa to travel Vanimo-Jayapura-Bali.... that is, are the likely to issue the wrong or no visa at all if I tell them I'm entering via West Papua. I phone them up about this and they were very sketchy - told me to contact the consulate in Vanimo and they seemed to deny the border crossing even existed!

6. And last.... If it all goes horribly wrong, I've heard it is possible to higher a speedboat at some cost and take this to Jayapura port which will issue a VOA. Is this true? Has anyone done this from Vanimo? Does anyone have a contact for organising this or is it literally a case of asking around when I get there?

If anyone has the latest on the border situation - is it open or closed (since the above posts) - any update would be great.

Thanks very much for any advice,

Phil.

Phil,

Why on Earth did you need to tell the London consulate you are going to Papua?
That is simply asking for trouble!
Otherwise, a visa issued by them would be valid at any border crossing, but in the past they have been known to stamp visas "not valid for Aceh, Maluku, Papua" for people silly enough to specifically tell them they wanted to visit those areas.

Cheers for the reply.

Simple answer is I didn't know initially that they were restricted areas when I first contacted the embassy. But it shouldn't be a problem as I didn't submit an application at that time because I couldn't get a straight answer out of them.
The embassy does request an itinerary and proof of exit flights, but if I wanted to go down this route I think it is obvious how to side step this ;-)

More on this

Be warned all. My recent trip to eastern Indonesia and PNG turned into a complete disaster. I'll try to be as brief as possible:
The plan was - fly from Taiwan (where I live) to Bali, fly immediately to Jayapura, get a PNG visa there, enter PNG and spend around 10 days there including Madang, return to Vanimo and get new Indonesian visa, re-enter Indonesia and spend some time travelling in eastern Indonesia.
Here's what happened. On arrival in Bali, I had to choose between a 7-day or 30-day visa-on-arrival. I chose 7 days thinking that would be enough to get me into PNG. On retrospect, it was a bad decision.
I flew straight out to Jayapura and went to the PNG consulate. The girl working there was none too friendly. She refused to give me a tourist visa on the mighty dubious grounds that I had a 7-day Indonesian VOA (I don't see how that's relevant) and that I had no domestic flights booked in PNG (why would one buy a car before one has a driver's licence!! And what if I wanted to travel by ship?) She said she could only give me a business visa for an absurd 1.8 million Rupiah. After considering my options (none except go home), I reluctantly decided to pay. It was issued after three days
Next stop, immigration office in Jayapura to get exit stamp. The stamp-man told me that with my VOA, it was not possible to exit Indonesia from Jayapura. I must exit from the port of entry i.e. Bali. I asked to see the relevant regulation but he refused. However, he offered to "fix" my problem for one million Rupiah. After the nonsense at the PNG consulate, I was in no mood to have my problem "fixed". I went instead to the police station, simply to see if anyone could speak English and tell me if what the immigration guy said was true. One thing led to another, the police made enquiries with the immigration office and confirmed that there was indeed such a regulation. Since the whistle had been blown, it seemed I was out of options, even to pay the bribe, so with my 7 days almost up, I got on the first flight back to Bali (wasn't easy either) with my tail between my legs.
On return to Bali, I knew my visa would have expired by the time I got out, so I visited the airport to explain my predicament. The patient lady in the passenger service office (i think that was the name) outside the departure hall listened to my story, made some enquiries with the immigration people, and told me that my original plan had been fine. It was perfectly legal for me to leave through Jayapura!!!!! Anyway, the vacation(!) was over, I was US$2000 poorer, and to add insult to injury, was fined for overstaying my 7 days.
In retrospect, if I had chosen the 30-day VOA, I could still have spent time travelling around eastern Indonesia, even though I would probably still not have made it to PNG. If I hadn't blown the whistle and paid the 1 million to the sleazy immigration guy, I would (probably) have made it into PNG, but who knows what trouble I would have encountered there on the way back.
Moral of story, in places like that, expect corruption and try never to leave yourself in a position where you're at the mercy of officials. Hard to do when crossing a remote border though.
Good luck all!

Colin

I received an email about this crossing yesterday from another person.
They entered on a 30 day VOA, and could exit from Jayapura to PNG after paying a 500.000 Rp bribe! Well, it seems obvious now that anyone planning to leave Indonesia that way had better get a visa in advance.

And indeed, it was very bad strategy for you to try and save 15 USD by buying only a 7 day VOA.

As for the PNG consulate, they have long been very unreliable and often unhelpful, which is a real shame as it might put many off visiting their otherwise great country.

yup, you're right, but I'm a cheapskate Scot afer all. LOL.

Though I’d leave my experiences on here after relying on the posts above for my original advice before heading out.

Border crossing 20/10/09 ---- PNG to Indonesia

In a nutshell, my experience went smoothly. No bribes, no hassles, I was through the border once it had opened in 30 mins.

I was armed with a standard tourist visa from the Indo embassy in London (see above comments about what to ask for, you can fill in the blanks, I’m sure!).
For PNG, I had a VOA from landing in Port Moresby from Oz.

PNG border was an hour or so late in opening, but when it eventually opened they were pretty helpful in stamping us out – even let us jump the queue and use their toilet! No bribes, just the standard immigration forms. People had a smattering of English too.

At the Indonesian end, even easier. Went into a room sat down with a guy who spoke pretty good English – filled out the forms, etc. Didn’t look twice at my visa...... Even negotiated a cheap(ish) taxi fare for us onward to Jayapura. There are 2 military stops after the border, where they were a bit sterner, and no English spoken - but after I smiled a few times and said “Jayapura….Bali”, they seemed satisfied and waved us through (this incidentally was true, I was off to Bali after a brief stay in Jayapura, and had the documentation to show it, I don’t think they asked for it, can’t remember now).

Note that despite my experience, bar an hour delay, going as smoothly as any border ever does, please don’t take this as any sort of guarantee – just adding my very limited experience to the pile so people can make up there own minds.

Happy travelling!

Wow! This thread is still here!!

Well, three years later, I've decided to try again LOL. I'll be following the same plan as last time (see prev page) but with visas in advance for both Indonesia and PNG, which I'm working on now. I've been trying to prepare very carefully to avoid a recurrence of the disaster last time.

I've been in contact with a very helpful lady at the central govt in PNG. Due to the unusual overland entry, she has advised me to apply directly to the authorities in PNG, who will then contact the visa issuing office in Taiwan where I can collect my visa. On the other hand, the Indonesian authorities have been hopeless; every dept I've written to has ignored me. I think I can get a tourist visa through a travel agency though (30 days only).

Just wondering if anyone has done this crossing recently. Some things on my mind are:-

1. Money. Three years ago only one bank in Jayapura would change my traveller's cheques. Now from what I've been reading, they won't even change US dollars cash! I'll have an ATM card which should work (it did last time), but the maximum withdrawal seems pretty small. So it seems the only option is to bring thick piles of cash rupiah with me from Taiwan which is kinda worrying. Is this what other people do?

I was thinking I might be able to leave my Indonesian cash in a security deposit box in one of Jayapura's banks, and collect it on return from PNG. Has anyone done this before?

1. If the border shuts down while I'm inside PNG, that would be another disaster to write home about LOL. Does anyone know what the chances of this are? Has it happened before? If so, for how long?

2. I'll have to re-apply for a new Indonesian visa in Vanimo. Has anyone done this recently? What are the chances of getting 60 days? (because I'd like to do a lot of travelling in eastern Indonesia)

3. I'll be in PNG around the time of the Goroka festival. It sounds awesome but if I'm gonna be carrying large amounts of cash, pickpockets are a major worry. Any thoughts? And how about accomodation? I'm guessing everything will be booked out, so what do other travellers do? Homestay? How bad do the prices get during the time of the festival? Double? Triple? 100 times? LOL

Any info would be greatly appreciated and I'll be glad to offer any help I can along the way if anyone needs advice about anything.

Thanks
Colin

1. You can withdraw bigger amounts in one go if you do it inside the bank, over the counter, rather than using ATMs.

2. Chances of that happening are slim.

3. Haven't done it recently, but even if you get only 30 days, you can extend it once in Indonesia - maybe up to 4 times, 30 days at a time.

Hi Laszlo,

Thanks a lot for the info. Do you know for sure if banks in Jayapura will accept US$ cash? And if so, how good/bad are the exchange rates? I've tried searching on the Internet but no luck...

My problem is that I fly Taiwan - Bali - Jayapura. The stopover in Bali is at midnight, and very brief, so I guess changing money there will be impossible. I can buy cash rupiah here in Taiwan but the rates are pathetic.

The card I have is only an ATM card, not a credit card. I don't think I'll be able to get larger amounts of money out the banks with that.

I can't say it for sure (I don't carry cash), but there should be at least one bank changing cash in such a large town. Rates have always been poor though.
Try the ATMs at the airport during your stopover in Bali!

Ok, thanks again.

By the way, if I have a tourist visa (30-days) issued in advance (i.e. not a VOA) for Indonesia, can I just go straight to the Indonesia/PNG border? Or do I still need to visit the immigration office in Jayapura to get a stamp?

I appreciate you taking the trouble to respond!!

In theory, you should be able to go straight to the border.
But you can always ask in JYP to be sure.

Ok, thanks!