The great SIM card fiasco....
We started the day needing to accomplish a handful of errands. We needed to buy a plug adapter for power, have lunch, find an ATM for local currency, and finally get SIM cards for our phones. It was the SIM card portion of the day that reminded me why I pulled myself out of fieldwork the year before I officially retired. Normally when I must think this hard to solve a problem, I’m being paid $50 an hour with benefits.
The ‘situation’ began with not having the correct power plug. This was discovered too late in the game sometime last night. We could not charge our phones or computers. And time was ticking. My I-phone lets me know I have 18% left on its charge. I’m approximately 8135 miles from Seattle with things to accomplish. Like getting back to our room. The sky was threatening rain, and we could not arrange for a taxi without a working phone. We needed a new local sim card to make a phone work. I saw a SIM kiosk on a remarkably busy street. I purchased 15G nano Sim cards. The guy was friendly and extremely helpful. He needed our passports to register the sim cards with the government. This is typical when traveling. Good thing I remembered to bring them for this quest. He popped the new cards in and told us to wait 10 or so minutes. They should work then.
We thanked him and set off for our final thing to do, which was to have lunch. During lunch we were not successful at texting or calling each other. This was the intent of the new cards. The battery of my phone is now down to 12%. We walked back to the kiosk and all three of us sat on steps nearby to untangle this mystery. For several minutes we received no joy.
So, there I was, situated between Diane on my right who was suggesting things to try and the Indonesian to my left doing the same but with very fast and limited English combined with a spattering Indonesian. There was me, in the middle, navigating and feverishly typing into my phone instructions from my brain, Diane, and the Indo guy. Let me remind you that we are outside, sitting on steps to a business on a busy street and it’s 85 degrees with 1000% humidity. My phone is down to 11% and we still need to arrange for a taxi back to our place.
Eventually it was determined that the new SIM he sold me was for internet access, but not dialing. So, we went down a path to set up the WhatsApp app. Diane had taken a pic of the email with the WhatsApp number to our place on it. This was no joy either, but we were getting close. 10% left.
‘SIM card’ guy eventually tried a ‘Hail Mary’ and topped up my account using his personal account for 20k IDR. Finally, I called his cell using my cell and all worked. We’re not home yet, but much closer. I thanked him, gave him 30k IDR for the top up and we were on our way to find a quieter place in order to call Atta Mesari Villa and arrange a ride. Now 7% on my phone charge. Then the call finally worked, I talked our gal at the front desk. She started working on getting us a taxi.
The traffic was gridlocked. I texted her this information and suggested we move to a better spot, such that the taxi could actually get to us. She texted back a google pin location and we started walking. It was 450 yards to that point, slightly uphill on something barely considered a sidewalk, navigating people, obstacles, motorcycles, potholes, and even a lemur.. …. Gawd! But at least my phone works, it’s not raining yet, and Diane is a trooper. We walked by a gelato place and Diane mentioned we should get some. I was focused, and just recovered from 25 minutes of frustrating tech-time. I encouraged us to just keep moving and get us home. I will regret this forever. Generations of my family ask her family for forgiveness. We finally got to the pickup spot which was a 7-11 type place, and I bought a couple of well-deserved waters.
In semi-heavy traffic a car pulled up and I nodded at the driver, and he nodded back, then Diane and I got in his car. Hmmm were we about to be kidnapped for the third time? The taxi was unmarked, and no words were really spoken. It started with two nods. Maybe he was looking for someone who he was just texting to on Tinder. It was starting to look like we were about to end up on the back of a milk carton. He seemed nice. But all kidnappings start like this. Luckily, this was ‘our guy’ and we were off. With windshield wipers going the driver navigated a challenging and semi-dangerous road. At one point on the 2-lane road, one of the lanes had washed away leaving a dead drop of a couple of hundred feet. Someone had kindly put three rusted burning barrels in front of the damaged road giving drivers at least a shot of not careening off the road, and down the cliff into a burning fireball of death. Nope, we just slowed ‘a little’ and drove around.
The video to the right is the washed-out road. It happened a year ago and hasn’t been repaired. It used to be one lane in each direction. Now one lane is gone.
For you Monday morning quarterbacks, yes, I could have done better at setting up my phone. And a reminder that I don’t have AT&T in the USA involved. I’ve switched to AIS in Thailand, which does not work here in Indonesia, so a new SIM card was needed. I couldn’t set up a new WhatsApp because I needed to delete my old one before using this new Indonesian number. This I found out later while doing research in my quiet, air-conditioned villa. Normal people will just let it go. Me, no. I have to put it in written form. This way it lasts forever, but so do the good stories. Whewww!