Clash of culture

I have been looking on the web for a year to find the best place to retire - live reasonable (with a $2000 month pension) safe, civilized, etc.. There are places that are wonderful but expensive, places that are very cheap but rough and unpleasant, I don't think you can do better than here in Bali - Hindu - good karma - but I am going to look in Thailand and Vietnam to see for myself.
Do you have any ideas and suggestion?
https://sites.google.com/site/bobbysvillasbali/
A social six months visa:
https://sites.google.com/site/wiredbrain/
I have a loft if you want to visit

MUCH of the blogs and reviews of SE Asia are prejudiced by cultural bias. No it is not Cleveland but further west, so far west that it is the far east. After six months it will all seem normal. The disorder becomes a new kind of order, difference becomes the new normal. What is misunderstood becomes understandable. A little cultural anthropology in the field.

You have a bunch of tourist who don't know much – unlike the British foreign service which has long time residents, the Americans have tourist who just begin to understand when they are transferred, as are generals in command of the wars.

Don't believe much of what you read from tourist.

The St. Thomas USVI joke. There was a West Indian who suddenly died. When she met St. Peter she was told that her record was incomplete so she would be given a chance to visit heaven and hell so she could decide for herself where to spend eternity. She when to heaven and it was a boring! Just a bunch of angles sitting around praising god and singing hymns, not up beat at all.
Then she visited hell and it was just like the West Indies, beach party with steel band, rum, sex, dirty dancing and rag gay. So she choose hell. BUT when she returned it was hell, fire and brimstone (what ever that is)
She complained to St. Peter who told her that last time she was a tourist.

Americans and Australians are more provincial than Europeans because they are all over the blasted continent. Not much difference between regions and cultures in the great melting pot – a pot that contains too many ingredients becomes a mush as too many colors become muddy brown; lacking high points and sophistication. Sidney becomes American, holiday inns, Hummy foods (KFC, subway,) Big Mac, whopper, fast food mass produced...and not really cheap.
You have a bunch of tourist who don't know much –unlike the British foreign service which has long time residents, the Americans have tourist diplomats who just begin to understand what is going on, when they are transferred, as are generals in command of the wars. Even ATT did not want their people going native so moving left them with only the company as their society and their total commitment.
No wonder we don't know our way around Cuba, Syria, Iran, Mesopotamia, Vietnam, USS-was, etc.. Don't believe much of what you read from tourist. Journalist can be better but there a few real foreign corespondents left. Just helicoptered in faces on green screens. It's Friday so this must be Istanbul -

https://sites.google.com/site/bobbysvillasbali/
Dr. Peter E. Pflaum, GlobalVillageswiredbrain@gmail.com
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google.com/site/bobbysvillasbali/
A social six months visa:
https://sites.google.com/site/wiredbrain/

I have a small pension and want to find a nice place I can afford to live.
I left the country (USA) Jan 15 2013 for Bali,  I am 77,   recently divorced, a retired professor. I have been 30 years   in New Smyrna Beach FL with my now X-wife in a $500,000 house I paid for thus have a settlement. I have good character: a professor at leading universities with degrees from the University of Chicago (BA), Harvard (Ed M), FSU (PhD). I have been a high level federal employee   with security clearances.

Dr. Peter E. Pflaum, GlobalVillages
wiredbrain@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/wiredbrain/
Villas Amed (Bobby's Villas) bobbyartana@yahoo.com
Bali Jl. Raya Amed, Karangasem, 80361 Indonesia
in Amed Beach Jemeluk
Dr. Peter E. Pflaum, GlobalVillages
wiredbrain@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/wiredbrain/
Villas Amed (Bobby's Villas) bobbyartana@yahoo.com
Bali Jl. Raya Amed, Karangasem, 80361 Indonesia
in Amed Beach Jemeluk

If you have a Kitas and a passport then you can open a bank account in Indonesia. I have 2 accounts and everyone of my teachers who comes to Indonesia opens a bank account once they have the correct legal documents. Perhaps you should try a bit harder with the banks, assuming you have the correct paperwork to be in Indonesia.

Peter, get a retirement visa which is good for 5 years and you can stop messing around with renewals every month and visa runs to Singapore or wherever.  At your age and if your plan is to live in Bali, that is the only logical way to go.  After the five years are up you can convert to a KITAP visa which is a permanent residency status visa.

Living here using a sosbud visa makes no sense at all. 

Use a good and reliable visa agent and don’t mess around with amateurs. 

http://www.bali-expat-business.com/

They will act as your sponsor for the retirement visa as well as for your KITAP when the time comes for that.

As Luke writes, once having a KITAS visa in hand (such as a retirement visa) you can open an account in any bank in Indonesia. 

As for FED EX, I’ve been doing import/export business on Bali for about 16 years and they are the hands down WORSE company on Bali to deal with, especially for anything incoming.  We will only use DHL for express matters, but in reality the postal system here is quite good and EMS works perfectly well.