Malaysia Bag Snatch - Replacement Passport Experience

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I recently visited Malaysia with my Thai wife. Unfortunately whilst in China Town in Malacca my wife's bag was stolen by a motorcycle bag snatch. Naively I had thought Malaysia had very little street crime, but the Malaysian police advised that street crime has dramatically increased during the past few years, so be careful. Luckily my wife was not injured and the police were professional and whilst writing the police report apologised for our experience on the behalf of the Malaysian people. The police were kind enough to take us back to our hotel.

We were both traveling in Malaysia on Australian passports & the Embassy in KL provided emergency passports within 24 hours. The downside was the cost of the passports totaled nearly 13,000 baht, that was more that the airfares back to Bangkok! Plus we have to apply for a full replacement passports at the embassy in Bangkok that we cost approximately 14,000 baht.

My wife's Thai emergency documentation to re-enter Thailand was provided at no cost by the Thai Embassy in KL and took three hours to process. Again their was a downside in that one of the Thai Embassy staff initially refused to provide the document stating that Thai's could not hold dual nationality, we appealed and the individual was overruled as being incorrect.

Note to depart Malaysia on emergency passports you have to go to Malaysian immigration and pay 1,000 baht for each exit visa. Time at the immigration office was only one hour.