[BintanBeer]

PART-2 (This PART 1 and PART 2 info is gathered from an Indo Forum written by an Expat)

Expat Lifestyle
Newly arrived expatriates usually live near the airport, were the golf club is. The airport residential area is about 20 kilometres from town, which is 20 to 30 minutes by car because of the heavy traffic. Expatriates who have been around longer tend to live in town.

There is not much public transportation other than the Kota buses (Micro-lab 6 or 8 seats). Taxis are rare, and often taxi drivers do not want to drive you to destinations outside the town of Manado. Cars are easy to rent and not too expensive. At the local market it is possible to rent a Kijang for Rp 100,000/day (including fuel) or for Rp 2 million/month.

Housing costs are cheap and houses are quite easy to rent. A villa with a garden in the residential area in the hills near the city, with 4/5 rooms, AC and two bathrooms can be rented for Rp 20-30 million per year to expatriates, Rp 15 million to locals. Usually the landlord requests two years rent in advance.
Do not count on buying land. Land prices are not expensive, but it takes a long time to build a house, longer than anyone would expect.

There are only a few cultural activities in Manado. There is one multi-show cinema, no theatres and no concert hall. Most of the activities are organised by churches, so it is quite common to attend a Gospel service on Sunday mornings. More common entertainment for locals are cars races and animal fights. The best activity in Manado is what the locals call "carlotta" which means to talk and talk about each other.

The expatriate community in Manado is not big. There are very few expats, but occasionally you can meet somebody who says they have lived in Manado for years. Most expats are in Manado because of new tourism-related businesses. Most are in the diving field. Others are in the hotel business, as Hotel Managers. Others are in mining, based in Manado, but working in the jungle camps. The rest of the expatriate community, working in different sectors totals not more than 10 people. Australians have the largest segment of the community, but there are also Americans, Singaporeans, Dutch, and French.

Expatriates spend most of their free time on the weekends diving or fishing. The diving is really fantastic, one of the best places I have ever seen. Golf is also a common activity. Tennis, jogging, cycling and climbing the volcanic mountains are also popular.

Night life options are poor. There are Karaoke bars, restaurants, a few night clubs, and a couple of discos. One of the most favoured spots for expats is the Novotel Hotel, in the Boulevard area. Novotel has the best western restaurant, the best accommodations, the best disco, the best swimming pool and the highest prices. Locals move in the evenings from the disco at the Novotel to other discos. The most activity is on Saturday nights, when the night life lovers get drunk and excited by other matters.

Groups of Italian or German tourists can often be seen accompanied by their local guides on a tour of the various night life spots. There is even a music bar which copies Hard Rock Café that is not too bad. Most of the expatriates enjoy going there.

When my family lived in Manado they enjoyed the new adventures, but after a few months they started to be bothered by the frequent water outages (at least twice a week the water supply is cut off), the power cuts (at least one day per week), and the lack of western facilities.

I enjoy living in Manado as life is much simpler. I find Manado uncorrupted, far from what I have experienced elsewhere. Manado may not have a lot of facilities, but the area is really nice. The islands surrounding the area are really a tropical island paradise, with white beaches. Only one hour away from Manado, but really a different world.

But when I need to go into Manado, I find that I really like this funny, different, crazy town.