“For someone who’s not experienced in traveling, I would rather recommend staying at home. You need to have the nerves and be persistent,” Juergen Alsbach told The Jakarta Post earlier this week. The 56-year-old real estate developer had just returned from Germany to Ubud in Gianyar regency, Bali, where he has lived for 2.5 years.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the resort island last year, Alsbach has been able to make three return trips to visit his children back in Koblenz, Germany. As an experienced traveler, the nitty-gritty of the coronavirus-era travel requirements did not bother him; at least, not until his latest trip back to Bali.

“I think this time [the government] were overdoing it a little bit,” said Alsbach, who arrived last week in Jakarta, where he completed the mandatory quarantine before flying to Bali.

“They’re always changing the rules, so there’s always something new. But it was never as strict as it was this time,” he added.

Alsbach did not expect the five hours it took for him to complete all the health procedures before he could leave Soekarno-Hatta International Airport for the quarantine hotel. He took a PCR test on the day he departed Frankfurt and took a second test when he arrived in Jakarta.

The results of the second PCR test took at least two hours and after that, he tried to log in to the Indonesia Health Alert Card (eHAC) system, just as he had done on previous trips. He then found out that it had been replaced with PeduliLindungi, the official COVID-19 tracking app.

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