One of the less glamorous realities of slow travel is that eventually a country politely asks you to leave for a while.
Our Indonesian visas were expiring, so we had to leave Sorong, in far eastern Indonesia, and fly to another country while immigration processed our new visas. Since Sorong is not an international airport, this meant first flying all the way to Jakarta or to Bali before we could even begin the actual “leaving the country” part of the trip.
Singapore would have been the easiest option, but having already been there several times, we decided this was our chance to explore someplace new. We chose Western Australia and flew into Perth for what would become a ten-day visa run adventure.
The tricky part was timing. Indonesian immigration estimated six to seven business days to process the visa. Estimated being the key word there. We had to decide how long to stay, when to buy return tickets, and how much faith to place in government paperwork moving efficiently. In the end we bought the tickets and hoped optimism would prove to be a sound travel strategy.
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