Day 65 (Pekanbaru)

Another day, another border crossing, this time our last overland one from Malaysia into Indonesia.

We clambered aboard another boat with our baggage and took some seats in the upper saloon. I've never been on anything quite so rocky. I thought the speedboat to Black Moon was bad, I thought the fast ferry back from Alton Towers was bad..they were nothing compare to this monstrosity! The boat looked like a hybrid between a speedboat and a small ferry, and it ploughed through the water at a crazy speed. It was like the captain thought the waves would part for us rather than bash us around the place. I tried to stand at one point to talk to someone but had to have a lie down to stop from feeling sick. The toilet on the boat was a squat...interesting trying to use it with the boat rocking around so much and only a small handle on one wall to try maintain your balance – quite the experience!

When we got off the boat an immigration guy snapped the passports out of some of our hands despite our protests that we were in a group and were all to stick together. Mine was one of those he grabbed so I stuck to him like glue demanding he return it – he wouldn't. I followed him to the office where they sell you the visa. He handed the three passports over to the lady who was sitting waiting to take our money. I took them back and left the room to wait for Kim and the rest of the group to catch us up. The lady was demanding $25 US or 300,000 Rupiah for the visa. That didn't equate! Needless to say we were unhappy and quite vocal about the fact that we were being ripped off. I had no dollars left (they were all long gone to pay for the activities earlier in the trip) so was forced to pay in local currency – I was not a happy bunny. I was even less happy when my passport was handed from that office into the one next door where they took it behind a screen for a long, long time before finally handing it back with a receipt for $25 not the amount I'd actually paid. The guy sitting outside the screen was holding a USB device that I'm sure now contains a scan of my passport and god knows what else. It wasn't a good first impression for me..they were so aggressive and rude :(

We met our bus on the other side of the border and were greeted by Anto, our translator for the next 14 days – the yes man. The bus is grand, but it's weird that it doesn't have enough stowage space for our baggage..most of it is inside the bus with us and is being used as a mattress by one of the drivers when he needs to rest up!

Pekanbaru was a lot bigger than we expected. It was back to a KFC dinner (I really, really wanna eat something different now but am too scared of getting sick again).