I called the surf place and got ahold of the owner. I told the exact circumstances of the theft (ie we checked the amount of money we had directly before leaving to get in the van for the surf shop, and the bags were never out of their care from then until we were back at the hotel, so we were certain that someone got to our stuff while they had it) and he was pretty surprised - hadn't had theft problems before apparently. We went over the story several times until he was convinced that there really weren't any loopholes. Once convinced, the owner graciously offered to pay us the cash value of the stolen items (about $270). I do give him major kudos for this. Getting that $270, though, took pretty much the last day and a half of my time in Bali, plus expenses.
Initially, the owner told me that someone from the shop would come over immediately, have me give them a written report, and then give me the cash and we could all go on our merry ways. That sounded good. What actually happened was that about two and a half hours later the entire staff of the surf school, less the owner who was traveling and only reachable by cell phone, showed up to get that written report. Obviously, several members of the staff felt threatened by my accusations (which, since most of them were probably innocent and this threatened their livelihood, is legitimate) and were not really pleased to be there. Over the course of a rather intense hour, I repeatedly told the story, then wrote it down and signed the statement. I also had to debunk repeated questions and statements from the various members of the staff the whole time. At the end, I didn't get the money. They said the Hard Rock wanted a police report and that I should report to the school the next morning at 9am (on my own dime) in order to meet them to go file one. I objected to the owner over the phone about having to pay for my own taxi, and he said they would send one, but the staff either didn't get the memo or didn't obey, so the next morning I got my own taxi back to Kuta at 8:30am.
When I arrived at the school on time, I first had to wait for 15 minutes for various members of the staff to assemble, including the driver who told me he would be unable to pick me up at the hotel because he would not be available the next day. Then, they took me to meet the manager of the Hard Rock, who assured me that the Hard Rock had no responsibility for the surf school (which doesn't surprise me) and he was only interested because there had been a theft on his grounds. He sort of explained a bunch of things I already knew, and had me repeat the story yet again, before sending me and the surf school staff off to get a police report.
The first police station we went to, we didn't even get inside. There was one traffic cop in uniform smoking cigarettes outside, and they explained everything to him first. I told the story again, and was questioned on the details, again. At this point, if I'm lying, I have it down pat. After hearing the fullness of everything, the officer says that it isn't his jurisdiction, and sends us to the police in Sanur, since that was where I called from to initially report the theft. So we drive to Sanur.
There, we actually make it to the front desk of the police station, where once again we explain everything and are questioned on the details. The officer there also concludes that this matter is not his jurisdiction after hearing the whole thing out instead of at the beginning. He does us the favor of actually calling the people whose jurisdiction it is to make sure that we're going to the right place. We take a taxi back to Kuta, as the driver has disappeared with the van.
This time we go to a much bigger police station. We tell the whole story and are questioned on the details at the first front desk. This gets us in to the second front desk, where we tell the whole story and are questioned on the details repeatedly. A policeman laboriously types the information in to a computer terminal, and gives a lecture on how to pack a day bag to make theft less likely. The information is printed and signed. I think, finally. But I'm wrong, and we are not even close to done yet.
See, that was in fact the police report. However, now that we have filed the report, they want to investigate the crime, even though everybody involved must know that the only purpose for this is so that the shop can make an insurance claim. So they bring everybody into another room and guess what? We tell the whole story again. They debrief one member of the staff, who I think they were trying to pin it on, separately. I'm 99% sure she didn't steal the stuff, but she was the one who was supposed to be watching it and the police were definitely sort of interested in her. If I had to guess, I would say one of the photographers got it - they were the sketchiest people there and we got a bad vibe from them. Also, enough money was left in the wallet to purchase our photos from them, but not a whole lot more.
Anyhow, we tell the story again and again, and get questioned on the details again and again. Another officer is typing all this up into a longer report that everybody knows is going to get stuffed in the bottom drawer and forgotten about. Eventually, they herd us back out into the hallway and tell us to wait. Twenty minutes later, they ask what we are still doing in the hallway and tell us that we're finished here. From there, we go back to the surf shop so they can get copies of everything, and finally, finally, finally, I get paid and catch a taxi back to the hotel in Sanur. Ana has been worried for hours that the police are tormenting me in a back room somewhere.
Cash $270 never looked so good. It took fully eight hours (skipped lunch) plus $16 in taxis and $6 in long-distance phone calls to get that money back, which of course was mostly spent immediately upon coming home on a new iPod for Ana. That girl owes me for this one, and no mistake. After I got back, we went to Spike's and I had a well deserved quesadilla with real cheese, salsa, and guacamole.
One authentic Indonesian police report
After that, we had our flight back at midnight, and everything else as far as getting home was uneventful, aside from said flight coming in late enough that we had to sprint across the well-designed Osaka terminal and boarded our train about 90 seconds before it was scheduled to leave. Then it left 6 minutes late for some reason.
No comments:
Post a Comment