After getting my wallet stolen in Kuala Lumpur, I was ready to get out of Malaysia. After realizing that I likely wouldn’t return before the end of the year, I began to get increasingly nostalgic about my time there. Before ever coming to Malaysia, people would tell me not to visit, saying it was a Muslim country and unsafe for a single woman traveler but I couldn’t have found the opposite to be more true. Over the year, Malaysia began feeling like a second home to me.
When I first signed up to be on SV Millennium, I wasn’t supposed to have gone to Malaysia at all but two weeks in the shipyard in Langkawi turned into 2 months and I estimate that all in all, I spent about 6 months in total there. I have several people that I call friends, neighborhoods I normally stay in, places I frequent, stores and restaurants where I recognize the staff, a metro card, and even a favorite dentist, dermatologist, and acupuncturist. In many ways, I felt more at home in Malaysia than I had felt living in Los Angeles during my finals years there.
On my last day in Kuala Lumpur, I walked around the city to take it in one last time. Eventually, I found myself at the Petronas Towers, both during the day and once more a night. There is a park next to the famous towers and found it to be incredibly beautiful once the sun went down and the lights came on. The park was packed with people taking pictures of the buildings and some just sitting to enjoy the view. My heart was full of gratitude thinking about all the memories I made in this country.
The next morning was an early wake-up call. I had a 7 am flight to Makassar, Indonesia and to give myself enough time I decided to order a driver for 3 am which sounds ridiculous but I’d rather be tired than in a rush. Since my ride-ordering app was linked to my stolen credit card number, Kai gave me the name of a taxi driver she knew and I was able to pay cash. I got to the airport with enough time to enjoy the free massage chairs in the lounge.
A few hours later I arrived in Makassar. I waited in line for immigration and presented my visa paperwork to the officer. He then requested proof of departing flight and I explained that my wallet had just been stolen two days ago and I was unsure if I would be able to book a flight but could show proof that I could afford a departing ticket. He insisted that he couldn’t stamp my passport without a departing flight and I insisted that I had entered Indonesia two other times this year without having one.
I was holding up the line, so, he motioned me to sit on a bench at the side of the room and he would send someone over to talk. Although I had a new electronic credit card on my phone, I wasn’t able to see the credit card information to manually enter for online flight booking. A few minutes later, one of the immigration officials sat with me and asked about the situation. I explained about my wallet being stolen and accidentally catching it on video. After showing him the video, he motioned his other immigration buddies over to watch the video once more. The video seemed to lighten the mood as they laughed and joked amongst themselves.
Feeling bad, the immigration officer said he could charge me a USD 20 fine (wink wink) for not having a departing flight, and then he could stamp me into the country. Suddenly, I realized that I might have enough credit card points to book a departing flight and told him to give me a couple extra minutes to think about it. Fortunately, the points worked and I felt relieved that I did not need to succumb to government official bribery.
Once through customs and immigration, I picked up my bags and got in a taxi. I would be traveling to Bira the next day, about 5 hours by car, and decided to book a hotel room for the night. Once I checked in, took a nice hot shower, and quickly fell asleep, snoozing until the afternoon. Even though this was considered a 3-star hotel, it felt like a luxury. There’s nothing like the experience of clean, fresh sheets and towels. Having not eaten all day, I was quite hungry by the time I woke up and asked the hotel if there was any nearby food since the hotel’s kitchen was closed in preparation for the dinner service.
I also needed to find an ATM since I was low on Indonesian Rupiah and wasn’t sure if my backup debit card would work, it seemed to be more sensitive to potentially sketchy, international ATMs. The hotel concierge indicated I could find an ATM across the street and the only food open nearby was a KFC in the parking lot. I walked to the street and spotted the ATM across the way but given the rush hour traffic, a 4-lane road holding 6-lane’s worth of vehicles, and no pedestrian crossing in sight, I decided it safer just to stay put and hoped the KFC could accept my credit card.
I ate some kind of sad chicken burger and relaxed in my room until the dinner service started, then was treated to a buffet. The next morning I woke up refreshed and waited in the lobby for my transfer van. As I waited, I was approached by a group of women asking to take pictures. It seemed like the longer I waited, the more pictures and poses they asked for. Even asked me to pose with their husbands and at one point, asked me to look into his eyes. The whole experience was a bit strange but luckily the van came to pick me up and I was off to my next adventure!
