Passports!
After an unprecedented amount of unbelievable procrastination, we finally did it. Our passports had expired right smack in the middle of lockdown, and we simply had no reason nor means to renew it.
Once the borders had reopened Malaysia experienced an unprecedented frenzy for passport renewals. With the need to maintain social distancing at the time, and with new contactless practices introduced, the Immigration Department was simply overwhelmed! Wait lists ran into several months, and with no real desire to travel abroad we decided to wait.
Three and a half years after our passports expired, we finally applied for renewal online. The process was fairly easy, but we ran into a snag with the photographs we submitted. We had selected the Immigration office at Shaftsbury Putrajaya, a fairly quiet and out of the way office, to collect our passports. With this in mind we also booked a homestay within the same building to make things easier for us.
So, with our appointment at the Shaftsbury Immigration office slated for tomorrow in mind we left our home at noon and after a leisurely hour's drive arrived in Putrajaya.
We had lunch at Woodfire, a gourmet burger joint here in Putrajaya.
After lunch we headed to the homestay that we had booked for the night. The host requested anonymity, a request that we respected and honoured.
We checked in and spent the rest of the day indoors, out of the blazing heat. I then realised that I had forgotten an important item of clothing: the Batik shirt that I bought from Serikin, Sarawak meant to be worn tomorrow for the passport's photograph to be taken at the Immigration office.
We had little choice but to make the seventy-kilometre round trip to and from our home to get my shirt! Once that was sorted we made our way to Tapak Urban Street Dining at Cyberjaya, then hopped back into BiBi to make our way back to our homestay to retire for the night. We have an appointment with an Immigration office first thing tomorrow morning, so a good night's sleep is always a good remedy for eyebags!
The following day we woke up at half past six and got ready for our appointment at the Shaftsbury Immigration office. In the end we did not get much sleep, for the life of us we could not figure out how to switch off the wardrobe light in the bedroom. It was a good thing that we did not review the anonymous homestay since it would have been less than flattering. Also, I was quite perturbed when the lady we dealt with who was 6 years my junior insisted that I address her as "Kak", or elder sister?
We got to the Immigration office at a quarter past eight, and in little over an hour walked out with our newly minted passports! We then headed back to the homestay to pack up and check out. We left at ten and exactly an hour later were back at our condo.
Armed with the passports we can now plan our next trip abroad in earnest, but not before first fulfilling our promise to feature every state in Malaysia on our channel. Stay tuned!
(Do visit our YouTube Channel Have Perut Will Travel)
📍 Location:
Havironia Music - https://goo.gl/maps/swtNfVmjFK4FgRsf8
Woodfire Putrajaya - https://maps.app.goo.gl/t4SmPNjCi71AxNKo9
Shaftsbury Putrajaya - https://maps.app.goo.gl/2r5g397dT8mLFjEH9
Tapak Urban Street Dining @Cyberjaya
Malaysia Immigration Department (Shaftbury Putrajaya)
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