Melinda Gates Convinced Me to Return to the Den of Thieves
I dreamt of being bitten by a snake the night before I found out that I'm going to Kuala Lumpur. Women Deliver Conference will take place in KL and there's an opportunity to present my programme.
I blacklist Kuala Lumpur (and the entire country) since I got mugged in Suria KLCC, the mall under the Petronas Tower, in November 2011. My handbag was stolen, with my passport, ATM, credit card, ID card, blackberry and one-month-old Samsung Galaxy. The management was of no help - I haven't heard anything from them since, no sympathy, not even "Sorry this happened in our mall". When I reported to the tourist police station, their reaction was more like "Oh, here's another one". No word from them either.
What was supposed to be a weekend trip turned into one week of nightmare trying to sort out temporary travel document to leave Kuala Lumpur.
The Indonesian Embassy, at that time, was issuing temporary travel documents to thousands illegal Indonesian immigrants in Malaysia. Some of them have been illegal for 2 or 3 generations. And they treated me like one of them.
For some reason, my temporary travel document must be legalized by the Malaysian Immigration Office, which located 1 hour away from the embassy. I went there twice because neither Indonesian Embassy nor the Malaysian Immigration gave me the exact set of procedures to go through. When it's finally my turn to get the damn stamp on my temporary passport - the Malaysian Immigration asked me to pay 100 Ringgit. My six-day frustration of being stuck in a city that robbed me culminated right there. I shouted for all officers to hear "Your citizen robbed me, I have no money and now you wanted me to pay to leave this country? How do you expect me to pay?" And this lady ignorantly replied "Asked your friend lah". I threw the 100 Ringgit that my friend lent me and left.
My friends never bothered to ask me to join them in any trip to Malaysia, since.
I wasn't that keen to attend an event at the same complex where my nightmare started. Until I saw Melinda Gates' name on the list of speakers. This woman is going to win a noble prize one day (I'm sure) and I want to hear what she has to say.
So I got my registration number, bought a travel insurance and booked myself in a hotel 3 minutes from the convention center. My flight leaves in 17 hours. And everything will be fine this time.
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| My Twitter rant on Suria KLCC timeline |
