How to Travel to Bali - March ‘22 edition
Let’s say you want to travel around the world. Let’s also say the world is still in the midst of a global pandemic and a bit on fire. In that case, you pick the easiest country to start with, right? Wrong. Why don’t you try one of the hardest countries to get into first, and after that everything will seem easy. That’s what I did, anyway.
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Next week, I will officially start on my digital nomad adventure. Let’s go back six months first. When I got this crazy idea, COVID was still going strong. I wasn’t that worried, though. I was sure it was going to take me at least a year to figure everything out and to get my affairs in order before I could start traveling. Surely COVID would be much better in another year, right?
Wrong, again. I was wrong on both accounts: reaching my goals and getting my affairs in order happened a lot faster than I thought and COVID is still doing a lot worse than I thought, especially in the country that I had chosen as my starting point: Indonesia.
When I started to prepare for my travels to Bali in February, travel restrictions were still extreme. Luckily, things are changing pretty much every week (and in the right direction). Keep in mind that international travel is very dynamic right now, and everything I write here could be completely obsolete by next week. If you are planning to travel to Bali yourself in the foreseeable future, do your own research to get the most up-to-date information.
Things to do before departure
1. Passport renewal and e-Visa
Before COVID, traveling to Bali and attaining a visa was pretty straightforward for most nationalities. Indonesia had a great program called Visa On Arrival (VOA). It is exactly what it says: you arrive in Indonesia and you apply for a 30-day tourist visa. That’s it. No preparations beforehand or special requirements outside of having a valid passport.
Because of COVID, the VOA program was canceled. It was no longer possible to go to Indonesia as a tourist. Only KITAS/KITAP-holders or special visa holders were permitted entry to the country. Indonesia, and especially Bali, is very reliant on tourism, so the government created some sort of backdoor for tourists to come to Indonesia: the B211A e-Visa.
One requirement of a B211A e-Visa is to have a passport that is at least 6 months valid after your arrival in Indonesia. It is even advised to have more than 12 months validity remaining on your passport. My passport was still valid for a few more years, but I wanted a “clean slate” to start my travels, so the first thing on my to-do list was to get a new passport.
Once I got my new passport, which is awesome by the way, because Belgium upgraded their passports with all kinds of comic book characters on the pages, I could apply for my e-Visa. The B211A e-Visa can be obtained onshore or offshore. This means you don’t have to be in Indonesia to apply for the visa. There are lots of visa agencies out there that can do it for you. Be careful of scammers though! I used balivisas and I am very happy with them.
As said above, you need a valid passport to apply for the B211A visa, but that’s not all. These are all the documents you need to submit:
valid passport
digital passport picture
destination address in Indonesia (quarantine hotel)
bank statement of at least $1500,- USD (or equivalent)
full vaccination certificate
medical insurance for COVID of at least $25.000,- USD
Visa agencies are not cheap. You can apply for this visa yourself, but this is discouraged since you need to contact the Indonesian immigration office and the entire process is in Indonesian. You also need a sponsor letter, and that’s pretty much impossible if you don’t already have contacts in Indonesia. So you pay a bit more by using a visa agency, but it is more than worth it once you have that e-Visa in your hands. Once you receive your e-Visa, you have to enter Indonesia within 60 days, or your visa becomes invalid.
As of March 8th, the Indonesian government re-instated the VOA program for certain international travelers with a direct flight to Bali. The Netherlands are on the list, but unfortunately, Belgium is not, so everyone from Belgium who wishes to go to Bali right now still has to get a B211A visa. Also important: the VOA program is only reinstated in Bali! You can not get a VOA when you fly into Jakarta.
2. Find a quarantine hotel
At the time I received my e-Visa, Indonesia still had a 3 day - 2 night quarantine policy if you had received full vaccination + booster. Without a booster, the quarantine policy was 5 days - 4 nights, and without full vaccination, it was even 7 days - 6 nights. On top of the quarantine, you also had to take a PCR test at the airport and a second test at the end of your quarantine. You can only leave your quarantine hotel if both tests came back negative.
Not so bad, I thought. Except that another part of the quarantine policy was that you could only book at certain hotels that got approved by the government, and these hotels were not cheap. I’m talking about The Marriott, The Ritz-Carlton, and Hilton kind of hotels. Prices of over 200 €/per night were common. A lot of those places did offer you “the bubble experience”. This means that an entire wing of the hotel is reserved for quarantine and that you can leave your room and use the hotel’s amenities, including a reserved area by the pool or the beach. Basically, you pay a lot of money to quarantine for a few days without it feeling like a quarantine.
As of March 10th, the Indonesian government introduced a “relaxed quarantine” for international travelers who have a direct flight to Bali. The relaxed quarantine is 4 days/3 nights and can be done at any hotel or homestay that has a CHSE certification. When you test negatively on your first PCR test, you may leave your room and explore Bali. You do still need to do your 2nd PCR test on day three. After that, you are free. My AirBnB place didn’t have a CHSE certification, but I found another hotel nearby that does for only 12 €/night.
3. Submit your vaccination records for approval and download the PeduliLindungi app
Indonesia used the PenduliLindungi app for tracking your vaccination status and admittance to all kinds of social events, similar to the CovidSafe app in Belgium. Because I have international vaccination records, I first needed to submit my records to the Indonesian government for validation before I could import them into the app. There are all kinds of how-to videos and instructions online that guide you, so the process of getting my vaccination records validated was fairly simple.
4. complete the eHAC form
The eHAC form is similar to the Passenger Locator Form we use in Belgium. You can complete the form in the PeduliLindungi app. Because the rules are always changing, the app is not always up to date. Right now you can only choose a hotel from the official quarantine hotel list and not yet just any hotel that has a CHSE certification. I’m not sure if they’ll update the app before I leave next week, but travelers have reported that the immigration service is happy to help as long as you bring an official document stating your chosen hotel has the CHSE certification.
5. Book your flight
This might seem logical to you, but unfortunately, it is not. I booked my first flight way back in November, but it got canceled. When I tried to book again, there were no more direct flights to Bali. This made sense, of course, only people with a valid visa could enter Bali + you still needed to pay for one of those ridiculously expensive quarantine hotels. Nobody was flying to Bali under those conditions, so of course, KLM didn’t schedule any flights.
I had no other choice than to book a flight to Jakarta, do my quarantine there, and afterward fly to Bali. Luckily, KLM offered “flexible bookings” for all flights booked before March 1st, so if the regulations changed, I could change my flight without any additional cost.
As you now know, things did change. Bali re-introduced the VOA program and the “relaxed quarantine” policy. Vacationing in Bali just became a lot cheaper, and KLM started to fly to Bali again on March 8th, which also happened to be my birthday, so let’s just say it was a special birthday gift for me. I’m very happy that I have a direct flight to Bali now. It is more expensive, yes, but I gladly pay for the comfort of not having to quarantine in another city and not having to take a second flight.
6. PCR test
As with pretty much all international travel, PCR tests are mandatory. When you travel to Indonesia, you need a negative PCR test. The test must be taken within a maximum period of 2 x 24 hours before departure from the country of origin. It speaks for itself that if you test positive, you will not be allowed on the plane. Let’s hope I don’t mess up and get infected in the next couple of days!
Things to do at arrival
So I survived the 17-hour flight from Amsterdam to Bali, now what?
I haven’t gone through the actual process yet, so I’m relying on what I can find on the internet and other travelers’ experiences.
After you land in Bali, you have to go through a series of steps. First comes the vague checkpoint. I’m not sure what exactly they check, but I assume it’s to make sure you have all the correct documents and to answer any questions you might have. I think this is also where you can ask for help if your hotel is not on the eHAC list yet or if you need to purchase the coming PCR test separately (depends on the quarantine package you bought at your hotel).
Next is the Health Quarantine Check. This is the place where you get your temperature check. Once you pass through this checkpoint, you go to the PCR test swab room and they stick a swab so deep in your nose that your eyes start watering.
The next step depends on your visa. Either you go to the VOA counter to get a Visa On Arrival, or you go straight through the immigration counters to present your KITAS/KITAP/B211A or whatever kind of visa you have.
Once you’ve been cleared by immigration, it is time to pick up your baggage, if you have any, that is. It’s still unclear how long the entire health check – PCR – immigration process takes, it probably depends on your arrival time and how many people are working the counters, but it is possible that you get through really fast and still have to wait a bit before your baggage comes out.
After you’ve picked up your baggage, you still have to go through customs. You can fill in your customs declaration beforehand online or do it at the counter.
In a normal situation, this would be the last step. However, the world hasn’t been normal for over 2 years. When you clear customs, you are directed to a holding area. There are conflicting reports from travelers about this area. Some could just go through and wait for their test results back at their hotel, but others had to wait until their test results came back. Once you are cleared to leave the holding area and do one more exit check, you are free to go to the pickup area.
Things to do after arrival
Are we done? Not yet, but almost. The only thing left is to complete your relaxed quarantine. Depending on how familiar you are with transportation in Bali, you can either book an airport pickup straight from your hotel or risk it with a taxi or Grab/Gojek. I’d rather be safe than sorry, so I opted for the more expensive but easier option of arranging an airport pickup with my hotel. I’m very much looking forward to that movie-like moment when I walk out of the airport and search for some driver holding up a sign with my name on it.
When you arrive at your CHSE hotel or homestay, you have to stay in your room until the results of your PCR test come back. If the result comes back negative, you may leave your room and the hotel. However, when the result is positive, you either have to go to a government quarantine hotel/hospital or stay quarantined in your room, depending on what kind of package you booked with the hotel. Let’s hope I don’t have to find out how this all works.
The last hoop to jump through is the second PCR test on day 3. It is important that you do this, even though you may leave your room and hotel after the first test. If you don’t do the second test, your PeduliLindungi app will turn black and you will not be allowed in any hotel or restaurant.