An unproud car owner

I am ashamed to publicly announce that I am now the owner of a new car. Well, ashamed is probably not the right word, but I am definitely not proud about it. But I have discovered that living in Jakarta is very difficult without a car, unless you:

• live within walking distance to your office;
• live within walking distance to a shopping centre;
• live within walking distance to your child(ren)'s daycare(s)/school(s);
• are happy taking taxis (inconvenient unless you are going to a major landmark or know exactly where you are going, and have lots of small bills), bajajs (three-wheeled auto-rickshaws: only good if you want to go short distances, willing to bargain, and are happy inhaling exhaust fumes all the way to your destination), buses (usually not recommended due to the time it takes to get you anywhere, plus the high crime rate), or ojeks (motorcycle taxis: considered pretty dangerous unless you are happy to have scratches or worse to your limbs!) to get around the city.
  

So, I have had to throw away my environmental ethics and purchase a car. A new one, even. And it took me ages to get this car.

Basically, what one needs to do is to identify a car dealer, provide 5 million Rp to the dealer so he would start the process of getting the car for you, provide a down payment for the car (more than half the price of the car) and give a copy of your Indonesian ID card so that the dealer can begin the process of getting the legal papers, then as soon as you provide the rest of the funds, you will get the keys to your new car.

Sounds simple, no? Well, deceivingly so. And deceived I was. It took exactly 6 weeks for me to get the keys to my new car, due to a combination of factors:

• negotiating an international transfer of funds from my French bank account to a local bank account of the car dealer;
• trying to transfer funds via the internet and an ATM from my local bank account (which I could not open until I had my Indonesian ID card, which is issued more than one week after the official visa is issued, which takes more than one week after arrival in Indonesia) to that of the car dealer without knowing that one needs to get a "token" (a small device that looks like a calculator) for all internet transactions;
• the car dealer not happy with my Indonesian ID card;
• the car dealer lying about the availability of the colour of the car that I wanted (things may have been quicker had I wanted a black or a silver car, which are the most common colours you would find on the streets of Jakarta);
• the car dealer not being honest about the time it takes to get the legal papers processed.

It was only after I wrote a not very nice letter to the car salesman's boss, that the whole process was speeded up by a couple of days.

Funnily enough, when I complained about this to a colleague who has been living in this country for nearly 10 years, he said, "what, you got a hew car in 1.5 months, that must be a record!" Sigh.

So the lesson to be learned from this is what, exactly? That one needs to write nasty letters to get anything done in this country? No, what I learned from this episode is to be very careful of people's recommendations. Think twice before taking recommendations of someone unless you are sure that you can really trust this person. I made the mistake of going with the car dealer recommended by my office's driver. Who is rumoured to be taking some sort of commission from car dealers.

Next time I act on someone's recommendations, I am going to be just as careful of the person who is recommending something, as much as of the thing/person that's being recommended.

image taken from www.cardekho.com/Toyota/Toyota_Avanza/pictures