Ian CHEONG: 11/11/2007

2007-11-11

20071110: Vacation in Port Dickson - Disaster and nightmare

A short 3 night stint in our local timeshare package, at the Legend Water Chalets from 7th to 10th November 2007.

Somehow, the happiness was short lived after a terrible THEFT incident! So much for Visit Malaysia Year!

After breakfast on Friday morning, Jessica and I returned directly to our room, as I felt a bit uncomfortable and nauseous.

I took a couple of Panadols and rested until the afternoon, when we decided to have a stroll along the beach. I then searched for my NORTH FACE sling bag, which I then noticed that it was missing. I was definitely not in the car, as I checked there already.

So, the security was alerted and a full report was lodged. We were also escorted by the courteous security officer from the hotel to the Police Station.
All the normal procedures were adhered to including making a graphic report to the sergeant in charge.
His table had 3 thick stacks of files of unsolved cases, each about a foot tall! Talk about small town, but high crime.
According to the sergeant, there is a syndicate roaming around the hotels, targeting tourists (like me!)

My wife, Jessica, then made a comment, which I was unaware of, and this is the THRILLER!

According to her, when I was away to grab some food, some guy tapped her on her right shoulder and alerted her that she had dropped some money.
Not thinking too much, the "notes" were picked up. It turned out to be 2 sheets of FOLDED money.
This was 1 YUAN each. Current street value of the 2 Yuan = slightly under RM 1!
The strange part was, why on earth would we have dropped Chinese money in a Malaysian resort?
Yes, it is true that we recently returned from China, but the strange part is that China is NOW using COINS for all their 1 Yuan denominations. The notes picked up were dated 1999!
Is this a "trick" to fool the victim?
It is suspected that when Jessica picked the notes up, the accomplice would have snatched my bag without her notice!
The security guard mentioned the possibility of "jampi" or "some form of hypnotism" to the extent that:

She didn't tell me about this incident until the police report at night
She didn't notice anyone taking my bag
I didn't notice that my bag was missing
I felt uncomfortable after the breakfast, leading to forgetfulness

It is up to you to believe such folklore, but this was most shocking to us.

What irritated us even more, was the fact that millions was spent on the structure of the hotel, but no budget was appropriated for security cameras!
Would you believe it, they DO NOT have CCTVs in the lobby areas!

So this daymare took a good 4 hours out of us, spanning from tea time to dinner time.
We then returned to the hotel to await the arrival of the investigating officer. We met up with his entourage, after we made our way out to dinner, with the intention of trying out seafood at SEAVIEW restaurant, just 5 minutes away from the hotel. When we reached the restaurant, we got a call to return back to the hotel immediately.
This was a blessing in disguise, as if we did not returned, we would have been slaughtered by the SEAVIEW restaurant with their exorbitant prices!

After describing the entire incident again to the team, we then investigated the in-house dinner buffet, which we agreed in unison to dine!
At RM 55 nett, you get a plethora of seafood including crab, squid, fish, scallop cakes, smoked salmon, Japanese sushi, with salmon, beef, veal, chicken, sharksfins soup, seafood soup with clams, mussels, prawns,
vegetables, rice, etc.

It was a no brainer.

Anyway, part of the contents in the sling bag that was stolen is as follows: