Hi again and thank you Daniel50, Stevenandpenny for your responses.
Today, out of sheer fed-upness of doing research on the internet and asking around - all with different answers - for the past 3 months, I ended up giving almost all the documents to an agent at the post office in Ubud and asked him to handle my husband's KITAS!
It costs an arm and a leg but the thought of taking the scooter down to Denpasar from Ubud at 6 in the morining and waiting endless hours at the Immigration office won over.
I'm feeling quite relieved now!
So, for those who are fed up of doing research, here's how it goes (for me atleast, as different agent, different documents (!)
Documents I submitted, all ORIGINALS
- Birth certificate (this I had lost and had to do it all over again in Jakarta. It took 3 weeks because of Lebaran)
- Kartu Keluarga (my super kind village chief - the Kelian - took me under his wing and I am now officially in his family card
- Balinese KTP (this, also thanks to my village chief)
- Colour photocopy of hubby's passport, including all social budaya visa extensions
- Marriage certificates - issued in Indonesia, as we got married in Indonesia,, and a certificate issued by the French consulate in Jakarta
PLUS the translation into Indonesian by a sworn translator (had it done in 3 days and it cost Rp 600,000 for 2 pages)
- A document certifying that the French consulate had Nothing against our marriage (we lost the original so we are only submitting the photocopy, fingers crossed it will work)
- A print out of the 3 last months of my bank statement (I lost my bank book so the bank printed out the statements for Rp 3,500 per page)
- My husband's KIPEM issued by the village office - done in one day for Rp 65,000
(I also had a KIPEM but now I don't need one as I have a KTP)
- There was another document I just got this morning: a letter from the village signed by the village chief stating where you live, but this was required by another agent and not by the Ubud Post office agent.
Surprisingly, a sponsorship letter written by me, the Indonesian wife, is not required.
Indonesia has gone through a scandal of corruption concerning the electronic KTP. Hence thousands of Indonesians are now without a proper KTP but, like me, hold a piece of paper issued by the Kecamatan and Kabupaten. They scan your fingerprints, take your picture but give you a piece of paper without your photo which replaces a KTP)
The agent told me that the original documents would be given back to me within 3 or 4 days and to my relief he did not even take my husband's passport as he had already scanned it.
In Paris, about a week before going back to Bali, we are to go to the Indonesian embassy where the telex should have be already sitting pretty waiting for us. Then the man at consulat, if he is in a good mood, will give my husband a visa called something like 'marriage visa' in his passport.
Mais ce n'est pas fini!
When we arrive in Bali, we are to continue the process of the KITAS (not sure yet whether to go directly to the Immigration office of the Post office)... and voilà! I read about interviews being held either at the Immigration office or in our home! Is that true?
By the way the service includes the multiple exit permit.
Hope this helps anyone going through the stress like my husband and I did.
Oh by the way I had everything wrong from the start: lost my birth certificate, annulled my Jakarta KTP and KK and my name in my birth certificate does not exactly match the names on my passport and KTP!
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