Malaysian passport - ready in 2 hours!!

I am suppose to be in India this week - the week of 9th June. Just before I went off on my annual leave about a week and the half ago, I submitted my passport to the Indian High Commission to apply for an Indian Visa. On a Thursday evening, I received a call from our travel desk that the passport had been returned because the Indian High Comm could not find a single page to affix the Visa!!

I had already planned to be out of town with my family for school holidays. Darn!!! I had to send an email to our dept admin for help to relay to the India team of my visit cancellation. I had no Visa and had to apply for a new passport. So how could I apply for a passport if i am not in town?

Coming back to work on Monday saw me buried under more than 600 emails. Sifting through all that took all of Monday. So, today, Tuesday, I finally had time to go to the immigration department to apply for a new passport.WOW!!! All it took from handing my application in to getting my hands on the new passport was 2 hours. The immigration department has sure bucked up a lot since the last time I was there. I paid the fees for the new passport at 10.19am and got it at 12.30pm.

I had just approved 5 days leave for one of my new employees in India because it takes him that long (including transportation time to his hometown) to process his passport. Sheesh!!