Not fun Stuff

For those of you who haven't heard, we got robbed. Nothing violent, we just had our backpack sitting on the floor between us at an internet cafe and it got snatched... no idea how one of us didn't notice. While it didn't have much money in it, it did have my passport and camera along with a few other small things. Losing the camera is heartbreaking, as it was terribly expensive, but at least we didn't' lose any pictures (they are all backed up on this site).

The fact that the passport was taken has just been a mess. We first had to file a police report. Then we went to the US Embassy and got a new temporary passport issued within a few hours. Then we went back to the Indian Consulate and got a new Indian Visa issued (thankfully it only took 1 day this time, as opposed to 11 like last time). It couldn't just be easy though... after all of the running around and paperwork, we ran into trouble because the Malaysian authorities won't let me leave the country without having an entry stamp (which was in the old passport). I needed to visit the Immigration Headquarters which is in an entirely different city about 30 minutes outside Kuala Lumpur, and because of their office hours, it simply wasn't possible to do it in time for my Friday flight 9am flight. As a result, we've had to change my flight to Saturday (yet again), and Michelle left on Friday (this morning). Since her passport wasn't stolen we would have had to pay to change her flight, but the airline pushed mine back for free, so we decided the best way to do it was to split up for a day. While she flew to India, I traversed the Malaysian Immigration system, which is essentially a nightmare in a building. But it should be done now (knock on wood!) so hopefully we will be rejoined at about this time tomorrow.