planning relaxation

the end of ramadhan is closing in. next weekend is a double-long weekend, and those of us who do not need to "balik kampung" have made our plans to exit the smallest of the asian capitals in search of relaxation. in my case the plans are a trip to asian bohemia. the trip has been suggested, tentative, mostly-committed, replaced, tentative, mostly-cancelled and finally booked. the expected relaxation is based on the prospect of being able to order foods and have them resemble the origin cuisine, as well as sitting in a brew pub and playing checkers. it is sad that i need to fly three hours to a country with a barely working economy to get fresh beer and an acceptable italian dinner.

this morning started with a quick dash to the embassy for a visa. the standard method of doing this is to have a travel agent have a runner pick up and drop off your passport. these professional line-standers, make the process appear simple and efficient. the busy professional focuses on their work and life while someone else negotiates the bureaucratic minutia.

this didn't work for me for two reasons, first is my general horror at the idea of handing my passport over to anyone who leaves eye contact. my passport is my history, and my future, i have no interest in having it lost because i was too lazy or spoiled to stand in a line. i keep my passport in two places, locked in a safe and hung around my neck. the need to hand the passport over to a face behind a glass wall is stressful, but to hand it to a random guy on a motorcycle who i don't know, that one is just too much for me.

the second reason is that my malaysian IC expires this week. i have been approved for my new IC, have the visa in my passport and am now ready for step three in the process. step three is where i need to give my passport and IC back to the government for the second time in the process. this will allow them to swap one piece of plastic with my picture and title for another. i need my passport and IC to keep me legal in malaysia. a secondary, but real, benefit is that as i enter and exit i get to use the "expat" carpeted lane, rather than the "other passports" cattle queue. with the exception of blocked lanes caused by the abu dhabi womens cricket team, having this express lane is major plus.

so the morning was planned for a quick dash. the embassy "officially" opens at 9:00, so i went to have a coffee and do email before that. i had visions of slipping in after the initial rush, paying to expedite the process from the standard 2 day, to the much more convenient "right now visa". the fees are paid in RM, and compared to the simplicity of getting a entry visa in the bali airport, they are expensive. then again, the visa i just got for china was even more expensive, could it be the more communist a country is the higher they have jacked up the fees?

when i pulled up to the embassy at 10 AM, the crowd of visa waiters sweltering in the sun could be seen from two blocks away. they were pressed against the locked gate, and spilling into the street. i avoided the crush and sun, but that put me at the back of the line. by the time i got a deli-counter number i was 30 tickets back in the queue. given the complete lack of respect for the ticketing system, people just forcing their way to the window and conducting business, it was clear that the quick dash was out of the question.

all in all, it's done; step one, that is. the "right now" visa is apparently no longer available. the clerk told me it was never possible. i reminded her that she was the one that helped me with it two years ago. she smiled and said, "it is no longer available, they now must to go back to vietnam for processing". the salary impacts of taking away the chance to process "expedited" visas locally was a source of pain; if the grimace of regret that accompanied the smile was any indication.

i need to return to have a hopefully approved visa added to my passport. that is two days in the future. in the mean time, there is work-work that will more than fill up the week, an IC to have replaced and i noticed a lack of open space in the passport. it looks like i need to go to the american embassy and get the second set of extension of the pages in the past 4 years. visas that take up a full page are a serious waste of space. needing a new set of pages is one more impact of planning a relaxing weekend away.

wednesday morning is then another sweaty wait at the communist embassy with no visible security, and then a trip to the capitalist embassy where service is smooth and easy, but the process to pass though security is a minimum to two scans and the prospect of a cavity search. the communists have a thin wooden door, and the capitalists have ten foot thick walls. i am not really sure which system is better, they both have elements that could help the other.

can someone explain to me why i am not using a line-stander? this really is a lot of process so i can go to a comfortable cafe and have breakfast that includes sausage made from the animal god created for the breakfast plate. relaxation, simplicity, cafes on the lake, brewpubs, pho and music CDs for RM 1 (USD 0.28)....

yup, its worth the process.