In March we read that Indonesia will be offering a visa-free entry starting from April 1st. The new offer covered the following passports: China, Japan, South Korea, United States, Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, Russia, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and South Africa. We took the bait.
Tourism Minister Arief Yahya was hoping that visa-free travel would lure this year over a million tourists more to Indonesia. We are pretty convinced that many of those newly acquired tourists are not very likely to return to Indonesia after they learn — despite the promised visa-free entry — that they will be forced to pay 35 US dollars for a visa on arrival just like we had to do yesterday. In the immigration, we were told that the government has decided visa-free entry, but because immigration does not agree, everyone must pay for their visa-free entry.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Good luck Mr. Yahya and Indonesia.