Moving to Bali - What to Bring

Vincent OG

Member
Nov 29, 2002
35
0
6
Bali
I’m moving to Bali sometime in 2003 and, as part of my preparations I emailed a few people to ask their advice on what to bring, what not to bring etc. I received masses of helpful info and thought it might be useful to anyone contemplating a similar move.

The general conclusions are
1. it’s not easy
2. it will cost
3. you probably won’t need half the stuff you plan to ship
4. bringing goods in without a KITAS or similar is difficult
5. perhaps best to ship to a friendly Balinese or an expat with a KITAS

Does anyone else want to contribute so we can build up an bank of knowledge on the subject?

Once I’ve moved (and recovered from the shock) I’ll be happy to relate my experiences.

I also received some advice on visas and I’ll post this as a separate topic.

Expat 1
· It's not that simple bringing in goods to Bali
· too many greedy fingers
· they can charge what they like in import duties.
· It's no use asking a shipping company here what the possible duties would be, as each case is taken on it's own merits, gauged by how much they think they can get from you.
· I will though, get details of a company a friend recently used, but his experience was a nightmare.


Expat 2
· I use TNT Express here in Bali
· They are located right on the bypass
· phone number is 0361 703 519
· Ask for the boss, Pak Hiffman
· Indonesian duty charges for incoming goods is generally 50%...so you'll likely have to declare very low values, otherwise you will be paying through the nose


Expat 3
· We have never shipped anything into Indonesia but we have heard some horror stories about trying to get things in, no matter what it is or what the value is
· Even more problems with electronic stuff. You will have to pick them up at customs office and they will try to get as much money from you as they can
· you can be assured it won't be a pleasant experience.
· Our suggestion is to bring the pieces you want with you on the plane
· You may have to give something to get it thru customs but most likely it will be cheaper than if you shipped it in
· You may even get thru with no problems at all. We've only had our luggage opened once in the last several entries.
· If they should ask you to open your luggage, just comply with the smile on your face, you'll do much better with a good attitude then getting upset.
· We did bring our own cutlery as they are not easily found in Bali.
· We also brought an espresso machine,
· but we ended up buying another one (De Longhi) at the Gourmet Garage.



Expat 4 ………. This guy has moved from Australia in the past few weeks;
· We stripped down our possessions as you are currently doing and still found that we brought too many things with us.
· We ended up shipping 16 boxes of our life long possessions but found that we really didn’t need to bring things such as toasters, kettles and kitchen ware as it is readily available here and at a reasonable cost.
· We had to make a "donation" to the friendly smiling customs men to have our boxes released.
· I have found that (and expected of course) that corruption is the backbone of this country. If you don’t rebel against it and use it to your advantage it will get you thru a lot of red tape quite quickly.
· A must is any medication that you might need and antiseptic is also a plus. They have similar types here but they really are not as good as the products that you already know.
· We sent books and photos and all seem to arrive ok. Some frames were damaged but mostly as they were packed professionally the majority were ok. We regret bringing them now as we should have left them in storage in Australia.
· We brought our cd's out of the cases in cd carry folders.
· other small personal items should be ok.
· For electrical goods we needed to buy a voltage stabiliser, works ok and you can easily buy adapters for the plugs here.
· You will definitely get a hard time about personal possessions coming to Bali if you are only on a holiday visa. They say that you should have a Kites to bring personal items into Bali.


Expat 5· If you don’t have a KITAS you can use someone else's name as the recipient (maybe the house owner of where you are renting).
· personally, I would rather have goods go to a Balinese person then to myself as this may affect dramatically how much duty is applied.
· getting electrical items and cutlery etc. is not a problem.
· Some of the electrical items in Bali look like (and may well be) 1980's models (fans in particular) but quality cutlery, mixers, TV's etc. are no problem.



Prospective Expat ……… this lady is moving in the next few weeks· You can ship your books "book rate" in an M bag (sea mail bag) from and to anywhere in the world. It holds about 3 boxes of books. That's a good way to get the books there.
· We took our CD's out of the plastic cases and put them in those CD books which diminishes the volume by about 85 percent
· You can pay the extra bag fee (up to 150 USD...depending on the airline) and send a cardboard box or the like as extra luggage on the airplane. It saves you having to deal with the customs freight nightmare and you can simply bribe your customs official on the spot for 10 dollars or so IF it so happens that you get searched. Take wet-naps with you and wipe off the chalk mark if they do mark your bag for inspection.


Visitor· Electrical goods are readily available at Matahari Dept Stores and seem to be of good quality.
· We bought only electric jug and mugs but they performed well.
· The stores are equal to those in Perth W.A. and to us were quite inexpensive.
· They also sell the whole range of goods one expects from this type of store.
 

Vincent OG

Member
Nov 29, 2002
35
0
6
Bali
More Info

Here is info from someone else who is moving to Bali soon.
It has certainly helped me to focus to what to bring (not much) and what to leave behind (everything else) so thanks!!

General
I think different people just try it different ways, and a lot has to do with simple "luck of the draw" on how well a given method works at a particular point in time with all the different factors: e.g. whether the shipping company has their act together, what sort of customs agent you get, how cagey you are about addressing it to a local Balinese instead of yourself, etc.

Small Electrical Kitchen Equipment
Such items are readily available locally, and of decent quality even if they are 80's in style. We've been to Makro's several times, and plenty of these things are for sale there, as well as refrigerators, ovens, washing machines, etc,. There are also more "specialty" type shops selling even higher quality kitchen appliances though the prices are much closer to western levels. We are buying our large kitchen appliances from the latter type of shop, but our smaller items (fans, coffee maker, etc) we are getting at Makro's. Our building contractor, uses a local to make the purchase of the larger appliances, since it's easier for him to return them if necessary or to get warranty work done on them if they break down. He takes a bit of a commission for this service, but he also gets a good discount from the seller, so it works out almost the same for us.

CD's
I would be careful shipping CD's, since technically they don't allow them to come in to the country, and if the boxes are opened and examined (as they almost certainly will be at customs) they may "send them to Jakarta to be reviewed" for censorship purposes, which could well be the last you see of them. I'm speaking of music CD's here.
Software CD's I'm not certain about. Our approach initially will be to bring software CD's in our luggage, and take our chances with airport customs rather than shipping them.

Computers
In addition, I plan on bringing in a couple of external hard drives, with a complete operating system and application software programs installed on one, and data files, music files, etc. stored on the other (with the majority of my music collection stored as MP3 files). Originally we planned to purchase both of our computers there (they have a couple of surprisingly decent computer shops in Denpasar), but recently I've decided to bring in a laptop in my luggage when we relocate in July, and then we'll purchase one other complete system there.

Furniture
As to furniture of any sort, I have a hard time imagining it making sense to bring any from home. Handmade furniture is so readily available there that it certainly does not make sense financially. Only if you have a one-of-a-kind piece that you simply cannot live without. Even then, I would be so worried about shipping damage, unscrupulous customs agents ripping you off at the point you try to take delivery, etc. that I probably just wouldn't do it. We have met a furniture maker in the Ubud area who is simply fabulous. He made some incredibly beautiful furniture for our neighbours, and he has contracted to do the cabinetry in our house. We are taking photographs of some other furniture we want him to make for us (tables, chairs, computer desk, etc.). If we are happy with his work we would be glad to pass his name along to you.