I am truly impressed with our Malaysian Immigration Department today. Their service has gone through a tremendous improvement since my last experience with them some 5 years back.
I took Ethan to get his passport done at the Immigration Department today, along with mine too. I remembered the last time I had mine done, I had to be in queue by 7:30a.m. or else I would not even be given a number to get my passport application processed! With a baby in tow, of course we could definitely NOT make it by 8:00a.m. So bottomline…we only reached the Immigration Department at 10:20a.m. I had already downloaded the forms to be filled up from the Immigration Department website the day before, so all I had to do was to produce the forms with the necessary photocopied documents and photos, and I was given a number immediately. The amazement never ended: I only had to wait 6 numbers before I was called. By 11:00a.m. I had completed the application process for both Ethan and me, and was told to come back at around 2:30p.m. the same day to collect our passports! 🙂
After running several other errands, we made it back to the Immigration Department at about 2:45p.m., took our numbers for collecting our passports and was outta there by 3:15p.m.! Incredible service in super fast time! Malaysia indeed BOLEH….if they try hard enough.
Wow you actually stayed on to collect, probably save gas too. Yes, I am impressed with the Immigration dept in Penang too.
The Giddy Tiger says: To collect Ethan’s passport, Ethan needed to be there too, so we figured might as well collect the same day since he was with us. And no, we din wait for 3 hours to collect la, we went to run some errands first and came back.
Wish US could be boleh for that bureaucratic process. Just a dream there I assure you.
The Giddy Tiger says: Is it really that bad in US? I’ve heard *stories* from my friends about the PR interviewing process though.
M’sia Boleh…ya, they are improved lot! For elderly , pregnant woman and kids below 6 no need queue up too..wooo…that’s cool!
The Giddy Tiger says: Yup, I saw that special counter for preggers and kids below 6 (or 12??), but since I also made my passport together with Ethan, and I am neither pregnant nor a kid, I didn’t go to that counter. I also found out that kiddies’ passport (below 12 I think) costs only RM150 instead of RM300.
Getting my missus her PR was very time consuming and expensive. And then we did it all again so she can be a citizen.
Now folks swim the river from Mexico and their status is ignored. Angers me a lot.
The Giddy Tiger says: I didn’t know you had to do the whole hoopla thing for the PR as well as for citizenship. Ah well…at least it’s over now. 🙂