0:00
In Singapore, we had like a three-bedroom condo that we had and here we have like a really lovely like uh 3
0:06
4bedroom house with a little private pool um in a little sort of thing. And the cost of 1 month's rent in Singapore
0:14
will get us this place in in in Joja for about a year. So 1 month in Singapore
0:19
rent is about a year's worth of rent in Joja. The one line of advice that I'd give to anyone, and it doesn't really
0:25
only necessarily apply to Indonesia, it kind of applies to anywhere you go, is that embrace the culture wherever you
0:31
go. Don't try and impose your culture on wherever you're trying to live. Try and get there, learn how they work, learn
0:37
the local culture, and just embrace it. Any anytime you move internationally, it's it's an effort. You don't want to sort of do it every year. But we love to
0:44
to spend like, you know, 3 to 5 years in a particular country because you really get sort of a feel for it. You learn the
0:51
language, you learn the people, the cultures, you learn local cooking, like just everything and it feels like
0:57
becomes part of your identity a little bit. In today's episode, we are diving into a story that's anything but
1:03
ordinary. The guest is an Australianborn filmmaker, storyteller, and the host of
1:08
the podcast No Ordinary Monday. Podcast that seeks out the crazy stories from the most unusual jobs on earth. He has
1:16
lived an adventurous life that's taken him around the world. From his roots in Scotland to projects across different
1:22
continents and now to his home base in Indonesia. Through his work, he's
1:28
captured the power of stories that connect and captivate. And today he's sharing his own expert journey. Today on
1:35
expert experts, Chris Baron. Let's start.
1:46
Chris, uh, welcome to the show. I'm very very happy to have you here. Yeah, maybe
Guest Background, Expat Journey, and Challenges
1:52
as a first introduction, we should start from the beginning. Maybe you can you can explain us a little bit, uh, where
1:58
where you're from. Uh, what did your job was? Because I know like you've been a filmmaker, storyteller, now podcaster.
2:05
Where is the where is the start of all this career? Let's say like this. Well, thank you. I mean, first off, Mark,
2:11
thank you very much for having me on the show. It's a pleasure to be here. Um, but it's it's one of those things when people ask me, you know, I meet someone
2:17
for the first time, and they're like, "Oh, so where are you from?" I have to make a decision. Either am I going to get to know this person or is it just
2:24
like a short thing. I was like, you know, because if I get to know them, I will tell them the full story. If I
2:29
don't tell them, like just a short thing. I'm like, "Hey, I'm I'm Scottish or whatever." That's my short answer. But the long answer, because I'm on your
2:36
show, I thought, you know, this is the right place to to tell it all in full. So my um my father is Scottish and my
2:42
mother is Australian and I was born in Australia. However, I was less than 2 years old when we moved to Dubai. And so
2:49
I became an expat when I was 2 years old. Essentially to give you the sort of run through things. So from Dubai a
2:56
couple years later we moved to Houston, Texas. And from I did all my elementary school in Houston, Texas. So my home
3:03
videos are me running around with a Texan accent which I've lost now as you could probably tell. And then maybe when
3:08
I was like 6 or 7 years old, we moved to um sorry when I was about 11 years old
3:14
when I moved back to Dubai to do my high school. So we moved again back to Dubai and I did most of my high school in in
3:21
Dubai and when I was about 15 I moved to Scotland and did a couple of years of boarding school and then started
3:26
university in Scotland and then I started my career in Scotland. Then I moved to England after that and then I
3:33
was in London for many years. I met my wife there and we decided to move to Singapore and so we maybe I was in my
3:40
you know late early 30s mid-30s and then very recently about uh 2 years ago my
3:46
wife and I decided to move from Singapore and now we live in Indonesia and it's a small little town called Joja
3:54
which is on the island of Java sort of south of Jakarta. So it's a beautiful little place. But yeah, so that is
3:59
that's my sort of long journey of being an expat so far. Very quick summarized I
4:05
suppose. And yeah, maybe the first question that pops up and if you might respond about it is just like why so
4:12
many moves especially when you are a kid like I suppose it was more like the reason of your parents moving than
4:17
yours. Yeah. So my my dad um I think uh it kind of started when he was he's a geologist
4:24
and and worked in the energy business. So when he was 18, he left, you know, school to go to university. He was in
4:30
England and then very quickly he wanted to leave the UK and moved to Australia to work there and met my mother. And so
4:36
as you, as you said, me and my brother just as kids, we just bounced around wherever my parents were living.
4:44
And I guess my first decision to as an adult, you know, in in my sort of professional career, um I was living and
4:51
working in London for about 9 10 years and was to move to Singapore and then Indonesia after that. So it was kind of
4:57
I guess my wife is a Swiss Swiss German so she's you know not British and both
5:02
of us kind of shared a taste of you know we love traveling, we love to live in different places and we we sort of both
5:09
thought I don't think we want to stay in the UK for long term. And so yeah, we
5:14
made a decision, found a place that worked for both of our careers and Singapore ticked uh most of the boxes
5:19
and we made the move. Cool. I mean, I'm I envy you right now because it's just like one of the
5:26
discussions that I had with my with my partner was like, okay, if we need to take a next move, where we go? We go to
5:33
and one of the high rank ones was Singapore definitely. But yeah, you know what happened in 2020
5:39
and everything crashed down. COVID came exactly in that moment and we said, "Yeah, not going to happen."
5:45
I tell you what, we moved to Singapore in I think it was May 2019 and then we
5:50
had six months and then Singapore was one of those places where they're they're pretty strict when it comes to
5:55
lockdown and everything. So yeah, we two I mean like we had 6 months of Singapore without COVID and then after that it was
6:01
just two years of COVID and we all know what that's like. Yeah, I think the living abroad while
6:06
the co times is like a different story. I mean it's like everyone lives it differently and it's interesting to talk
6:13
about it because it's not really I mean especially those of us who move during COVID or like at the beginning of COVID
6:20
and then suddenly you are theorically to explore a new country and you're not doing anything of that because you're
6:25
close at home. So yeah, I mean yeah we were we were locked down.
6:30
And what about professionally wise like you were already working in the whole film making like storytelling industry
6:39
like uh back in the UK when you did the move to Singapore? How does Singapore treat that? Also it's
6:47
you said it fits the life of it but what's the check marks that it checked? I've been I've been working in as a
6:54
documentary filmmaker for about 15 years or so. So I left university with a masters in molecular microbiology. So I
7:00
was a scientist and I found, you know, I kind of did a first career in scientific sales and and whatnot and hated it. But
7:07
long story short, I found myself in in scientific uh documentaries working for the BBC at the time in Glasgow. And I
7:13
did a little bit of time in in Glasgow in the BBC there and some of the uh independent companies and then decided
7:20
to move to London and build my career there. And again I was at the BBC for a time some independent companies for a
7:26
while and spent about nine years building my career there. And I mean London is an amazing amazing amazing
7:32
place as a professional especially when you're working in television you know it's such a rich work environment.
7:37
there's so much going on, really talented people and it's all just really really thriving. So, it was for my wife
7:44
and I and my wife is in the sort of I guess you call it pharma biotech kind of consulting space. So, not not television
7:51
and and media at all. a very different kind of career and we both had decent careers there and we were kind of like
7:56
but you know we have good careers but we still that draw to move was slightly larger than the safety of staying put
8:03
and so we looked around and and through contacts a friend of a friend sort of
8:09
said oh I I've just done some work with a a good production company in uh in Singapore you might want to speak to
8:14
them and put me in touch and they said oh yeah we're looking for a director so if you want to come over we can offer
8:20
you a 2-year contract and we'll will sort out all your visa and all that kind of stuff. Uh, and my wife joined me uh
8:26
on a spouse visa and then once she was over it's much easier to find a job once you're in a country as I'm sure many of
8:32
your listeners know it's it's harder. So, yeah. Cool. What is the first impressions on arriving to Singapore?
8:39
Because I they are both very big cities. No, you come from London, you arrive to Singapore. I think the metropolit
8:47
style of life might be similar but they are completely two different worlds. Uh for sure like
8:54
how does it how did it fail at that moment of time? I mean, this is the thing. I think for
8:59
me, I've traveled so much and I've had I've been very fortunate growing up as well. You know, we went on holidays and
9:05
I've traveled. I mean, even for my work, as a documentary, in the documentary space, we do a lot of traveling to weird
9:11
and wonderful places. And so, I I had been through Singapore and visited, you know, three or four times before we'd
9:17
even considered living there. So, I had a pretty good idea of the city, what it was like, you know, what it could offer.
9:22
But for my wife, she had never visited. So she actually moved to Singapore without having ever visited the country.
9:29
So So for me it was it was okay like you know I it's always different when you enter a country not having a return
9:35
ticket. So you're like great, you know, and now I've got to sort out housing and I've got to get a bank account sorted and this and all that kind of stuff. I
9:41
just it was fine. You just sort of I got I busied myself with work and and just got on with finding friends and and
9:47
enjoying the city. And then my wife joined a few weeks later when she packed up London. I think for her it was it was
9:53
an interesting experience to live in in Southeast Asia for the first time. It's the climate is radically different to
10:00
Europe. Um the food I mean the food is amazing in Singapore. So that was a big offering as
10:06
well. But it is I mean but ultimately Singapore is a soft landing for many
10:12
expats. You know it's a very modern city. A lot of expats live there. It was a slightly larger shock when we moved
10:17
from Singapore to Indonesia. I was going to ask about that like what made you choose it as a new home base like why
10:24
the move from Singapore to to Indonesia? Yeah. So we were in Singapore for about 5 years or so and we love I mean as I
10:30
said Singapore is an amazing place. We had great friends there you know good social circle we had hobbies and all that kind of stuff. But I'd say the one
10:37
challenging thing maybe about not challenging but it is expensive. It is expensive Singapore
10:42
for housing just for a lot of different things could be expensive place to live. and we both had the opportunity to start
10:50
working remotely. So we didn't necessarily need to be and again this is one of the silver linings of co is that
10:57
that remote working kind of element became a little bit more acceptable. So yeah we found ourselves in this space
11:02
where we could do that and we wanted to keep our clients and our work contacts
11:08
within the same time zone. So we started looking at the countries around Singapore that had favorable visa
11:14
situations and you know good all the you know we had a bunch of boxes we wanted to tick. So you know obviously a
11:19
favorable visa it's not just going to be a a visa for one year and then you're done. We wanted slightly longer term
11:25
situation. We wanted we had a cat you know that we wanted to bring with us. So it wasn't like we would be able to leave
11:30
quickly if we had to. So, we wanted to make sure there was a stability and obviously moving I'm sure some of your
11:36
listeners know that moving a pet um around the world is not cheap. Um you don't want to keep doing that every
11:41
year. No, I think moving moving our cat Ricky was almost twice as much as it was to move
11:47
all of our belongings. Yes, I also love that. And I've done it twice with two cats. So,
11:54
yeah. Yeah, it is is expensive. It's bureaucracy. It's vaccines. It's And it's not only the plane on the ticket,
12:00
it's just a lot of like random stuff that you don't really know. Yep. Paying $500 for the special crate
12:08
or something like that, you know, and uh but of course we do it because they're, you know, part of our families and all
12:13
that kind of stuff. We wouldn't we wouldn't move without them. But yeah, so we started looking around. We looked at Thailand initially because my parents
12:18
had retired to Thailand and they previously had a good visa, but they changed their visa policies
12:23
recently and it became more difficult. I mean, Indonesia wasn't actually our first choice. Our first choice was um on
12:30
the island of Borneo. There's a um a town called Kotakinaloo uh in the state of Sabah, which is just beautiful. And
12:38
we did a sort of long weekend there to test it out. And it's, you know, on the coastline, you know, you've just got
12:43
like tropical waters with like whale sharks, you know, just swimming off the thing. It's just insane. And they had an
12:50
amazing uh I think a visa. I can't remember what it was, but you put a term deposit in and then you get 10-year visa
12:56
or something like that. Whoa. And we're like, great, that sounds amazing. And we sort of spoke to some visa agents and
13:01
they were like, yeah, it's all good. It's all good. The government hasn't reopened that visa yet because of co
13:07
they they closed it, but we think they're going to do it soon. So, we thought, okay, soon, you know, they thought maybe a few months. We thought
13:13
that's fine. Long story short, it took a lot longer than they they thought it would have to to come back online. So,
13:19
we just said we can't wait. So our plan we looked for a plan B and we saw that Indonesia had a good good some good visa
13:26
options but we just didn't want to move to Jakarta you know because it's a really really big city you know very
13:31
busy very polluted in some some aspects and we didn't want to move to Bali because Bali is just uh it's a you know
13:38
crazy place for tourists and can be expensive and ultimately it was just swapping one island on Singapore for
13:45
another island on Bali and we wanted a bigger place to explore and friends, two friends of ours independently at a at a
13:52
dinner party were like, "Have you ever ever um have you ever heard of Jobcha?" And we were both like, "Never heard of
13:57
this place in our lives." And so we started googling the next day and I think like in a couple weeks we were on
14:03
a plane to to check it out and it's got a brand new airport and had everything we sort of wanted and needed and the the
14:09
cost of living was so favorable and uh just offered us kind of all the things
14:15
that we we wanted in terms of nature. You know, Singapore is amazing, but it is essentially just a big concrete
14:20
jungle and they have great parks and all that kind of stuff, but you know, in terms of like if you really want to get into the wild.
14:27
Yeah. It's it's not the wild. Yeah. So, so yeah. So, that that's what uh led us to move here. Cool. I wanted to ask you
14:36
also like you kept doing your job. I mean, you you also switch remote. I'm working remote from even before COVID.
14:43
So, I'm used to working from home. But uh how is doing documentary and film
14:48
making from home? How how do you do that actually? Well, the kind of films that I make um
14:54
we have a team you know um and sometimes the team is big, sometimes it's small,
14:59
you know. I've led teams which are like 25 people on a larger scale. Sometimes it's just like four or five of us. So,
15:07
but I was able to do remote work. Uh and because Singapore is so close, it's just a 2-hour flight. And if I needed to go
15:13
back for meetings, um, I could just, you know, hop on a flight on a a Monday, spend the week there if I needed to, and
15:20
come back. And so the projects I was doing, if I needed to come in, it was quite easy for me to just pop over and
15:26
do stuff. And so it wasn't really a big deal. And a lot of when you're filming, it doesn't matter. You're out in the
15:31
field anyway. You know, you're flying to whichever country that you're you're you're filming in. just
15:37
the pre-production which is essentially a lot of research a lot of phone calls a lot of meetings which can all be done
15:43
remotely now and then during the post-production fa phase um I went over
15:49
and spent you know a week or two in the first instance just to sort make sure the editor make sure we get everything
15:54
right we're on the same page and then uh again it's just so easy doing what we're doing now you know
16:00
speaking face to face I I will say that for me personally it's like 70% as
16:05
effective as being face to there's sort of that slight element of especially when you have a larger team I think it would be less possible because there's
16:12
these little moments of spontaneity in the office where you're sitting there you've just read an interesting article
16:17
online or something you turn to your colleagues oh how about this and you get that real spontaneous kind of moments but um I think you've got to you know
16:24
you got to make some sacrifices in some in some ways for for living a remote life
16:29
yeah absolutely maybe just a couple of questions more about before we jump to the to the next section like you lived
16:37
in quite some countries, you did quite some changes through that. Did you have any moment where you said what the hell
16:44
did I do or were just like the challenges of settling in the culture shock everything was too much for you?
16:51
To be honest, not really. I've always whenever I've considered a move in my my adult life, I've always thought I can
16:57
always I can always go back, you know, one step, you know, I always just to give a preface, I'm very lucky I have two passports. I have an Australian
17:02
passport and a British passport. So, it's almost like having a bit of a safety net there that, you know, I can always take these risks and go to
17:09
somewhere like Indonesia, like Singapore, and always in the back of my mind, I'm like, well, if things really go badly,
17:16
um, I can always, you know, return home, um, to those places. You always find a
17:21
way to make things work, you know, and I think I'm very analytical. I plan in advance a lot and I try and think about
17:28
all the things that could go wrong and ensure that you know if I get to a place I've already planned for potential
17:33
things. There's always things you you don't realize but I think the short answer is no. I've never I've never gotten to a place where I'm like oh I've
17:39
made a big mistake. I need to go home right now. Nice. Um I like maybe I have one question more because you touched some
17:45
something that it it sparks a little bit of a curiosity. What about identity
17:50
crisis? Because at the end you lived in so many places and you grow up in so many places which makes it different
17:57
from the perspective of someone who have an identity crisis because they absorbing cultural things as an adult
18:04
but you had that from a child perspective. How did you deal with that? Did it build
18:10
on your personality and where is the way you think? It's a very good question
18:15
actually, Mark, because um I've always said that, you know, there's there's great advantages to to growing up the
18:20
way I did. You know, I feel like I'm very adaptable, very I can make friends with a lot of different people, a lot of
18:26
different cultures. I'm I'm very easy to empathize, you know, with people myself
18:32
in people's shoes and and be in a place without, as you said, that real like culture shock panic. I'm like, oh, this
18:38
is just, you know, how these particular people live in their culture. But the downsides to that I would say is that I
18:45
don't really have a feeling of where I call home. I don't I don't really have a sense if someone says where's home I'll
18:50
just say for ease I'll say Scotland or the UK or I'll say Australia even though I've never technically lived in
18:55
Australia. Um I have family in various places and I I guess they are home because that's where my family
19:02
connections are. But no, I if I ever said this is my home. I'm so homesick for for a play like I don't have that
19:09
connection to any one country which you know it kind of it becomes very interesting you know patriotic feeling.
19:15
A lot of people feel patriotic for their countries and I don't necessarily have that same level of like patriotism, you
19:21
know, to I have affection for Scotland and I love Scotland as a place and culturally I guess culturally and I
19:28
probably feel closest to Scotland if I had to say anything but still it's not like home home you know I've I've
19:34
had many homes in my time and the other downside is I don't have um I had friends when I was a kid but a lot of
19:40
people might have childhood friends that they know for their whole lives. you know, I I tend to have lost touch with a
19:48
lot of these people over the years. And so my oldest friends might be from university, for example, or,
19:53
you know, from the most recent place I'm living. So I do lack that element which
19:58
a lot of people um might cherish in their lives. I know about it also like the disconnection from from home and from
20:04
it's also something that comes up into the podcast multiple times especially people who repatriate who went back home
20:11
and everything evolved. You evolve but the world turns around also in the place that you were living and who used to be
20:18
there your friends suddenly have three kids and four cats and you are not in the same moment like but also like the
20:25
hobbies change their way of doing stuff I don't know like everything everyone evolves and and this is a
20:31
it's a it's a curious uh recurrent topic here also maybe the last question before we we jump to to the fast reply
20:38
questions are you planning to stay to Indonesia for now are you calling it home. It's the last base. Let's say like
20:45
this for now. For now, like I say, any anytime you move internationally, it's it's an effort. You know, you don't want
20:52
to sort of do it every year. Some people do. They they travel light and all that kind of stuff, but we love to to spend
20:58
like, you know, 3 to 5 years in a particular country because you really get sort of a feel for it. You learn the
21:04
language, you learn the people, the cultures, you learn local cooking, like just everything. And it feels like it
21:10
becomes part of your identity a little bit. And not to say if you spend, you know, less than a year here, you don't have that, but like, you know, the
21:17
longer you spend in in a place, you you just get a deeper connection to that the place and its people. So, for now, yes,
21:23
I think we're we're staying as long as we can. But we we don't have a plan for where we would go next, particularly. My
21:29
wife and I make very long-term plans, like, you know, if we're retiring, where would we settle? And maybe it's
21:34
Scotland. My wife is Swiss, but she loves Scotland as well. So, um, could be there. or maybe Australia. Those two
21:40
places keep coming up on our list. But uh but yeah, for now we're pretty happy here. Cool. So yeah, right. I would I
Life as an Expat: Fast Reply Questions
21:48
would say we jump directly to the to the fast reply round if it's okay for you. The idea of this it's as you already
21:54
know like quick answers the first thing that comes to your mind like trying to keep a short version for those who might
22:01
be interested. I would ask you to pick. I mean, you lived in a lot of countries, but maybe probably we should choose
22:07
between Singapore and Indonesia. Depends on what you prefer to be responding.
22:12
Um, oh, probably. I mean, I'm living in Indonesia now. That's my most recent move. It's probably freshest in my mind.
22:18
So, let's let's go Indonesia. Okay. So, let's do Indonesia then. The first question that I have, it's about
22:24
cultural adjustment. What took you a while to adapt in Indonesia, for
22:30
example? I mean, Indonesians are incredibly friendly. Um, and say the one
22:35
the one thing is that I drive here and if you come from a European country, learning the local driving culture is
22:42
really interesting because you just have to adapt, you know, and you've probably people might be aware of what it's like in Southeast Asia driving and Indonesia
22:49
is is no different. You know, there is a beauty in the chaos, I would say, and it works somehow, you know, but you have to
22:55
be willing to adapt to that because they're not going to adapt to you as the foreigner. You have to adapt to the the
23:02
local driving culture and I've I've had a lot of fun doing it and um you see some interesting things on the road
23:08
here, but it's fantastic. Nice. What about social life? Like how do you meet friends in Indonesia?
23:16
So in Joja, one of the challenges is there's not a huge expat community here. A lot of retirees, you know, a lot of
23:23
Dutch people. Um, so there's a small community, but there not many people in our age group. There's a few which we've
23:28
met through Facebook groups, you know, like a WhatsApp group here. Um, so we met a few expats through that, but um,
23:34
we've also got local friends, you know. Um, I go to a gym, I play soccer, football, met some people through that
23:40
as well. So I've got we've got both. Nice.
23:45
You touched it before. You said you try to learn the language. You're speaking Masha. What you're
23:52
trying to any learning tips that you want to give? I mean, English is not widely spoken in
23:59
JJ. It's Bahasa Indonesia, you know, uh, which in all intent purpose of all the
24:04
Southeast Asian language is probably the easiest one to learn and pick up. So, we've been easily picked up, you know,
24:09
probably a couple hundred words of vocabulary easily that we can use every day. I think we should have we should be
24:16
learning more. Uh, you know, we use Dualingo at some point. We'd love to get a tutor
24:22
in, but yeah, you can also get by the day-to-day stuff, Google Translate, you know, it's so easy these days. Um, just
24:28
to sort of get some level of communication between, you know, you and somebody. Makes sense. You already touched that
24:34
one also. But, I mean, compared to Singapore, everything is cheap probably. But the cost of living of uh Indonesia
24:41
right now, what is like the uh I don't know what is surprisingly cheap, what is expensive, what's the cost of normal
24:47
living per I mean we probably spend in terms of US dollars $1,500 to $2,000 a month um for
24:56
our expenses. That includes rent. We have a small hire car and our food and
25:01
just activities. So that's kind of our average. I mean, to give your listeners
25:06
uh a sort of the big surprising statistic that always gets us is that here uh well in Singapore we had like a
25:13
three-bedroom condo that we had and here we have like a really lovely like uh 3 fourbedroom house with a
25:20
little private pool um in a little sort of thing and the cost of one month's rent in Singapore will get us this place
25:28
in in in Joja for about a year. So one month in Singapore rent is about a
25:33
year's worth of rent in Joja approximately. So that's that's the level. Yeah.
25:40
And just everyday living food is super cheap. Um fuel is super cheap and so
25:45
yeah it's it's good. Nice. Um you talk about the home. So finding a
25:52
home. How do you find apartments? What is the hardest part of the process? Yeah. So that was my job when uh when we
25:59
first did our little wrecky trip. We had, you know, six months when we wanted to move here. And so we I went around and our first instance was like, "Oh,
26:06
we're going to try and contact Airbnbs to see whether they want a long-term rental." And surprisingly, they all
26:11
went, "No, no, whatever our price is for like 1 month, you just pay the same price for 12 months." And we were like, "Okay, that's not a good deal." But so I
26:19
just found various Facebook groups I was looking on for ages. and we got lucky and found this place and contacted the
26:25
owner and they were actually Balanese so they spoke great English and they're really friendly and so it's great to be
26:32
able to communicate in our language with with our landlords and so yeah we found it but a lot of people we have a
26:38
WhatsApp group with all the expats here and local people they they say hey I'm looking for a two-bedroom here and people helping out and again Facebook
26:45
WhatsApp groups telegram there are like websites but if you don't speak local
26:50
language they're a lot harder to navigate Okay. So, definitely community searching, let's say like this.
26:56
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Nice. What about living like a local? What's the way of
27:02
blending in, let's say, like this as an expert in Indonesia? I mean, it's hard. Okay, first off, it is hard to blend in
27:08
like in Indonesian when you know you're, you know, what we call a boule walking around, you know, foreigner, white
27:13
person. But, you know, one of the things I love here is again going back to the driving thing is that they're, you know,
27:19
you pull up to an intersection and you've got all these guys who are unofficial. They just wear like a, you know, high viz vest and they'll stop the
27:25
traffic for you, you know, and so basically the local culture is that you've got spare change, you know, small
27:30
do nominations of notes. You just give these guys basically like 20 cents, 15 cents worth of currency. and you they're
27:37
kind of just they're almost on every street corner, you know, and they're stopping traffic to let people get on because it's
27:43
crazy traffic. And so that was kind of for me like Chris, that's a great idea, you know, helping these guys out and they're doing you a service.
27:49
So now you are doing the same stopping traffic. Oh no, I'm not doing that. I think it'd
27:54
be like, you know, not not well not well accepted, but I definitely support them.
27:59
Nice. Um the next one I don't know. I mean it's a little bit difficult. It's work life. probably you don't have it
28:06
because you you still work with the with the Singaporean and companies and so on, but maybe you have context that explain
28:13
you a little bit how the work uh culture is in Indonesia right now.
28:18
Yeah, I don't think it's crazy like um you look at a place like Japan or
28:24
Singapore or Hong Kong where they work people to the bone. It's it's probably not that kind of high intensity
28:29
environment. But I will say that the place it's worth noting about JJ probably Indonesia in general that the
28:34
wages are lower for sure than places like Singapore and and Europe and and
28:39
things like that. Yeah. Well, I mean, especially in Jugja, it's kind of a bit of a you know, the working wages are
28:44
very low compared to the rest of the country. So, if you do come here looking for a local job, just be prepared for
28:51
that. Okay. You also said multiple times you drive
28:57
but what is the best way of getting around in Indonesia actually is it really driving or there is other means
29:04
of transportation? Um, I mean it depends on your risk appetite. You know, the the fastest way
29:09
to get around is with a motorbike, you know, or a scooter. And a lot of people so many scooters on the road here and a
29:16
lot of expats will ride a scooter as well. And if you're comfortable riding a scooter and you're, as I said, kind of
29:22
used to the local flow of things, it that's probably a fast way to get around. We drive, you know, because it's
29:28
uh safer in a bigger sense. But if you're in the we live just outside the sort of main city within the city,
29:34
they've got a pretty good bus system um that you can get around and if you need to go wider outside of Jojo to Jakarta,
29:41
Java has a really good rail system, you know, so you can take the train as well. They're quite nice as well actually.
29:47
Yeah, you touched the going with motorbike and tourist, which is the typical end of ending in a healthcare
29:55
hospital. So let's touch directly the next one which would be healthcare. How
30:00
does the system work? It's easy to access. Is it good quality? So touch
30:06
wood. My wife and I haven't had to use the hospital system in like a real emergency kind of situation. So again
30:11
touching wood, crossing fingers and toes and whatever. But we have used it for minor stuff. So the the private there
30:17
are private hospitals here that are pretty good. So two big ones in Joja. Um I guess one's a more as a Muslim
30:22
hospital and one's a Christian hospital. Both are excellent um that we use and we
30:28
also have international insurance. So we have BA insurance that kind of covers us for wherever we are. So we can use local
30:34
hospitals here. If we have some really serious issues, we can fly to Singapore
30:40
or you know place like Bangkok where you have you know maybe a more robust system or even Jakarta has a pretty good um set
30:47
of category for I think uh hospitals as well. Nice. Uh next one it's also related with
30:55
system the bureaucracy dealing with paperwork. You pass through visas. You said that you research how to do visits.
31:01
How do you deal with permits? How is all that done? So we did all of our visa and permitting through a visa agent. So we
31:08
paid them a fee and they basically took care of the entire um bureaucracy for us. Uh it is possible to do it on your
31:14
own again, but since we don't it's not as accessible if you don't speak the language and you don't have the ins and
31:20
outs and we didn't want to take a risk and have it rejected or denied for as we all know sometimes we just forget a
31:26
stamp or a piece of paper or whatever and then your entire application gets rejected you know uh and you don't
31:33
understand why. So we went through a pretty well respected agent and they
31:38
were brilliant you know and they helped us with everything. You obviously have to pay for that service. It's um part of
31:43
but it it comes with a lot of advantages as well that you know you're pretty much guaranteed to get your visa once you've
31:50
sort of all you've kind of given the details and paid your fees and and whatnot. So it was fairly smooth I would
31:56
say little bits of I mean the only difference is that we there isn't a huge visa company base in Joja itself. we
32:03
went through a Bali agent and they had to sort of like work out how to help us with a different place
32:10
and if we went to Jakarta or Bali it would be super easy but Jojo was one step of extra sort of administrative
32:17
work but in the end it was fine you know we got there in the end nice the next one it's the best and
32:23
worst what is the best thing of living in Indonesia what is the worst thing of living in Indonesia
32:28
I mean for us the best thing about living here is the reason that we came is you know We have access to so much
32:35
natural beauty and wonder. You know, we within an hour's drive, we can drive up to an active volcano and go hiking. We
32:42
can go exploring rice patties in the west side of the town. There's like river caves that we can go trampsing
32:48
through for like, you know, on the other side of town. And then a couple hours south is like the coast line with
32:54
rugged, you know, beaches and all that. So, we're just spoiled for, you know, natural beauty and wonder. and you just
33:00
go for a hike and you're seeing, you know, wildlife and all these things just it's it's a cliche, but you know, nature
33:06
therapy, you know, you could just go for a walk in vast wilderness and it is so
33:12
good for you and for your soul and and however you want to talk it, but I think
33:17
for us that was the main reason that we came here and uh yeah, it hasn't disappointed. What about the worst?
33:23
Yeah, the worst. I mean, again, I would love it if there was a larger expat community here, you know, just having,
33:29
you know, that level of um, you a few other people from, you know, they're on the same age group and same interest and
33:35
stuff. Again, not an issue. We got loads of local friends and stuff and I play soccer and football with these guys and
33:41
they're great fun, but uh, yeah, it would be cool to have like a large community here, but you know, you can't
33:46
have everything. You know, you got to, you know, you got to, uh, sacrifice certain areas. Yeah.
33:54
The last one that I have, it's the top tip. If someone is willing to move to Indonesia, what is your one line advice
34:00
that you would give them? I mean, the one line of advice that I'd give to anyone, and it doesn't really only
34:06
necessarily apply to Indonesia. It kind of applies to anywhere you go, is that embrace the culture. Wherever you go,
34:14
don't try and impose your culture on wherever you're trying to live. Try and
34:19
get there. Learn how they work. Learn the local culture. and just embrace it. Kind of bring it into your own world
34:24
because it's just it's just a it's a great way to live. You know, you learn new things about yourself, about a new culture, new people, new language, and
34:32
it's exciting. Um, and I think there are aspects of your own culture which you can see that fit, you know, within the
34:38
local stuff. So, we we eat local food all the time, but you know, we've also found a few little like delies which
34:44
serve like foreigner stuff. So, every once in a while, we'll go and get some home home comforts. You know, my wife
34:49
loves baking. She'll get like poppy seeds and stuff and make like a a nice sort of cuz she's also half Hungarian.
34:55
She'll make like a Hungarian poppy seed cake and that kind of stuff. But yeah, no, I think just generally just go with
35:00
the flow. Don't try and flow against it, you know, cuz everywhere has their own way of doing things. And uh yeah, you
35:07
just have to embrace it. Lovely. Yeah, I would say we jump to the mini game now. A little bit of fun surprise. Let's say
The Cultural Mini-Game
35:14
like this the one that I prepared for you today. No, no, should be very easy. It's I would mention just some habits.
35:21
It's a little bit of this on that like let's say around the world taking the advantage that you lived in quite some places so you know quite some cultures
35:28
and you traveled a lot. So my proposal it's that I mention a few habits or
35:33
customs and you tell me if it feels more Indonesian or more Singaporean or more Scottish or more whatever. Of course if
35:41
you have a very strong reason why you can also explain why the reason. The first one that I have, it's uh being
35:47
punctual. Being punctual. It's got to be Singaporean. 100%. That place runs like clockwork. Buses are on time. You know,
35:55
things just work. Um very efficient. Yeah. 100% Singapore. Talking about the
36:01
weather, it's got to be Scotland. The thing about Scotland is that it rains the majority of the time. It can
36:08
be miserable, but yeah, that's that's a definitely a very Scottish thing to do is talk about the weather. It's not only talking, it's criticizing
36:13
the weather probably. Yeah, no one's happy with it. But yeah, when it does when it gets one beam of
36:19
sunshine, everyone's got their shirts off and running around like it's summertime. Eating spicy food for breakfast.
36:27
Spicy food for breakfast. Probably that could be Indonesia or Singapore.
36:32
But I'm going to go Indonesia. You know, they have great great food here. But yeah, you can kind of eat, you know,
36:37
spicy sambal for for your breakfast and it kind of kind of normal. Nice. curing politely
36:45
against Singapore. It's that's a it's a very Singaporean thing is everyone follows the rules, you know, and
36:51
Singapore is a very rule orientated place and uh yeah, so definitely Singapore.
36:57
Yes, removing your shoes before entering someone's house. I'm going to go with Singapore again. You know, that's something we learned
37:03
when we were there and sort of adapted to ourselves. So, our our home here, we do the same thing. We don't wear shoes
37:08
inside and we don't bring outdoor shoes into the house. So, it's an Indonesian thing and a Singaporean thing, but I'll
37:14
I'll give it to Singapore. Saying sorry, even when it's not your fault. I'm gonna
37:19
go I'm gonna go H I'm going to go England. That's a very English thing to
37:25
do. You know, in London, you know, people apologizing. You know, even if you bump into someone in the street and
37:31
it was clearly someone else's fault, you'll you'll end up apologizing just cuz it's just the thing to do. It's the
37:37
polite way. Yeah. talking openly about money. That's that's a thinker. I'm going to I'm going
37:44
to say the UK probably is people pretty open, you know, in in the work space. But yeah, I mean it's not generally people. It's something generally people
37:50
do, you know, saying I mean, are you saying how much they earn or just how much they have in their bank account or
37:57
just generally? Generally, I mean, I will say the one thing that um in Singapore that some people like to do
38:03
is flaunt their money, you know? So, it's maybe not talking about it, but like some people will have tend to go
38:09
for a cheaper house, but then they'll have like a Ferrari sitting in their sort of like multi-story garage that
38:14
they'll drive around in. And so, it's sort of the openly showing the wealth. Yeah. Openly showing the
38:20
wealth. Yeah. Taking on a spontaneous weekend trips. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's probably a
38:26
that would be a British thing to do to go out, you know, to sort of either hop to France for the weekend or, you know,
38:31
I went rock climbing, you know, on the weekends sometimes, you know, saying, "Hey, on a Thursday, like, hey, who
38:36
wants to come out? It's good weather again." Going back to the weather, oh, it's good weather this weekend. Shall we go for a barbecue or go climbing
38:43
somewhere? And just Yeah. jump in the car and do it. Nice. Being spontaneous or take life a
38:49
little bit more as as it comes, let's say like this. Yeah. Yeah, I mean the Indonesians are very laid-back, you know. Um, I would
38:55
say that definitely that's it's one of their great traits is that, you know, a lot of people we meet, they just take
39:00
things as they come, you know. They may not have some people may not have all
39:07
the money in the world, but they they overcome a lot of um issues. Uh, and
39:12
just just yeah, everyone seems very content here. Um even though it can be chaos at sometimes
39:17
being indirect to avoid conflict conf yeah that's definitely England I think although also Singapore you know
39:24
Singapore there's there's a sort of you know don't rock the boat kind of aspect to it as well you know especially if
39:30
it's to authority okay so uh so yeah maybe I'll give it between
39:36
England and Singapore tomorrow the doing small talk with
39:41
strangers sounds American but No. Well, it's true. Like America has America
39:47
hasn't really come into any of these actually. But I would say that it could be America. They're very open. But also
39:53
Scotland. Scotland. I'm going to give it to Scotland because Scotland has especially a place like Glasgow where I
39:59
lived. I I would describe Glaswegians as aggressively friendly. Okay. It's it's they're they're in your
40:06
face. They're happy to see you. They want to talk to you. So 100% um a Scottish person will just strike up a
40:13
conversation in the middle of the street. Brilliant. Uh the last one that I have it's respecting silence or pauses in
40:20
conversations. Respecting silence or pauses in conversations. You mean without filling them with some sort of like chat and
40:27
like inane stuff depends where you are but I would say England you know England Scotland can be good good
40:33
conversationalists good emotional intelligence you know of if you if I I couldn't I couldn't say America unfortunately. I think America love
40:40
Americans love talking. So filling up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They love love to chat.
40:47
Cool. Um yeah, I love these ones because sometimes it's just like give information about the culture in a less
40:54
formal way. Um so thanks a lot for the response. Yeah, no worries.
Guest Promotion
41:00
So, I would say just before we wrap up the episode, um I would love to hear a
41:06
little bit of what you're working on right now. I know you have a podcast. We haven't talked about this, but clearly you are well equipped. So, you have good
41:14
cameras, good microphones, good headset. Yeah. Maybe you can share a little bit about uh No Ordinary Monday, a little
41:20
bit more about your podcast or any other project that you want to talk about and also where listeners can find you and uh
41:27
where they can contact with you. Yeah, absolutely. So, basically I've
41:33
been to give you the story of No Ordinary Monday and how it kind of came to be. I've been making documentaries for about 15 years and what I found is I
41:40
through the filming and meeting all the different I go to NASA and film with like Mars scientists and I'd go and do
41:45
like Absilent to volcanoes and like meet the safety crew and all of these people have such interesting stories about
41:51
their jobs. And so in the last year or so I thought you know this this actually could be a fascinating podcast. And so
41:58
Ordinary Mondays essentially I get a guest on who has an extraordinary career story, you know. So I've had people that
42:04
have worked in like F1, I've had firefighters, I've had people that have been on the scene at like airplane
42:11
crashes and um just like and the way that the the the episodes work is, you know, I get a little bit of like context
42:18
about what their job is, how it works, and then basically the the chunk of the episode is like a feature story. You
42:24
know, it's like every guest brings the most extraordinary experience of their entire career and they relive it on the
42:31
podcast for us. And um for some it could be, you know, uh a pilot who ditched her
42:38
airplane in the middle of the Pacific and was picked up by a Russian vessel or um you know, I had a a cave scientist
42:44
who almost died in a Chinese cave when climate it started raining and the cave flooded up. So, a lot of fascinating
42:50
stories and it kind of feeds into my documentary storytelling sense. each um each episode kind of feels like it has a
42:57
a documentary storytelling element to it, even though I'm kind of sitting like this and and talking with uh guests as
43:03
they as they relive these things. So, it's it's really been fun. We're only about 3 months old, but we release an
43:09
episode every Monday, every week, and trying to up the ante every time with with more and more exciting guests. So,
43:14
yeah, people can find us anywhere they find podcasts. Just uh type in No ordinary Monday. And we're also on
43:20
YouTube. I'm making an effort to edit um videos on YouTube. Uh a bit more time,
43:26
but you know, again, as they feel like documentaries, and a lot of my guests either have a lot of video material or
43:32
photos or behind the scenes stuff, and I try and weave those into the um in the episodes as well. And uh and yeah, just
43:40
come come and find us, have a listen. Cool. I mean, as always, for all the listeners, the links will be in the
43:45
description of the episode. So you will direct if you don't find it, go to the description and then check it out. Yeah,
43:52
I mean I already told you I I love the idea of the podcast and I'm I'm I'm kind of I'm a little bit envious that it
43:59
didn't come up to my mind first. Uh uh at at the same time I'm curious because
44:05
I suppose you have kind of a background of guest that when I thought about it like oh I would love to do something
44:11
like this but who the hell I interview also the problem. So um I wanted to ask
44:18
you like how do you find your your guests? How do you find these amazing people?
44:24
Well I mean I again like I before I started this I was brand new to podcasting. I had no idea what I was
44:30
doing. I'm I'm very experienced in in film making, in documentaries and stuff. And some of those skills are
44:35
translatable, but starting a podcast, I'm like, great, you know, the first thing I'm going to do is going to try and record like 10 episodes before I
44:41
even launch anything just to make sure the format's good. And what I did was, you know, I'm very fortunate that, as
44:47
you said, I have um a very good network of like people that I know that are
44:53
within uh either people I've interviewed before or behind the scenes folks kind of contacted my all my lowh hanging
44:59
fruit as it were and said, "Hey, I've got this idea. Do you want to sit down with me for an hour and have a chat?"
45:05
And a lot of people were like, "Yeah, sounds great." Um so that's how I got started. And you know, then I launched
45:10
with uh I think it was three or four episodes. Um, and then from there, you know, you've I've got the website and
45:16
people can when I approach guests now, I've got now um enough people like, "Oh,
45:21
I kind of, you know, you interviewed that person and that sounds cool." I'm definitely and it's interesting how
45:26
people react. You know, they kind of especially people that I know have a good story. You know, I interviewed a um
45:33
a death researcher and she's like, "I don't have like a a crazy story, but I was like, yeah, but you have an amazing
45:38
career." here and once we started talking her story was like yeah she had an amazing story so it
45:45
always comes out so I'm very fortunate that now I can basically you know I use a lot of different means for finding
45:50
people just googling you know if I'm looking for like a a saturation or a technical diver I would look on
45:57
different websites and find people that maybe done TED talks or or things that appeared in the media or
46:03
podcast before GPT is a is an amazing research assistant as well
46:08
we're finding people, you know, and so yeah, as long as I can think of a cool job. Um, you know, I'm thinking like
46:15
professional dominatrixes, you know, I've got, you know, hopefully coming up at some point. And, um,
46:20
just trying to find we anyone that comes to my mind and just reach out to them, say, "Here, here's here's what we're
46:25
doing." And if you're interested, I'd love to have a chat. And, uh, a lot of times people like, "Oh, that sounds that sounds interesting." And the great thing
46:32
about I've learned when I've doing my all my documentary stuff is that if you're talking to someone about themselves, it's not a hard sell, you
46:39
know? It's like, hey, come and talk to me about yourself for an hour and how cool you are. It goes the conversation
46:44
goes also easier. I mean, that's exactly the whole aim of this podcast like I'm not you're talking about your life as a
46:50
guest and at the end you don't need to be inventing anything. You don't need to be a creative. You just need to think a
46:56
little bit of what has been your journey and that should come more or less natural to majority of the people let's
Wrap-up & Final Thoughts
47:03
say like this Chris it has been amazing hearing your journeys and thanks thanks a lot for for explaining your whole
47:10
story but also like the insights that you gave on Indonesian Singapore I think it's very valuable for those who are
47:16
thinking about it for those who can still think about it looking from my own experience I would love to but uh yeah
47:23
um well I'll say, you know, if anyone I I know how um challenging some of these
47:28
moves can be and how information is hard to come by. And if anyone has any particular um questions or any specific
47:37
things they want to find out about my story, they can reach out um either on my socials, you know, we have no no
47:42
ordinary Monday on Facebook and all that kind of stuff, or you can reach out at um hellh lordinarymday.com
47:50
if you got any questions. Cool. That's a perfect way to end I would say Chris thanks thanks a lot and
47:57
pleasure having you in expert experts and to all the listeners if you enjoy this episode don't forget to follow
48:03
expert experts but also no ordinary Monday uh in your favorite platforms uh subscribe on YouTube and all the social
48:10
media until the next time keep explorist stay curious and see you in the next episode of Expert Experts.