Couchsurfers and Blackjack Scams

 

Too tired to write this arghh.

 

Okay…ah, refreshed. Last night I brought out my portable keyboard and sat intending to recount the past several days but after absently staring at the blank screen for ages I managed to only squeeze out the above statement. Having only 2-3 hours of sleep the night prior, I can understand why.
Ended my extended stay in KL yesterday with the same fondness with which I entered but with an added bit of sourness thrown in (from various angles which, rest assured,  I of course will explain in my usually thorough and verbose manner).
Trekker Lodge ended up being an enjoyable experience and I would recommend them. Positives are the out of the way quiet location which is still very centrally located in Bukit Bintang and cheap aircon dorms. I’m tempted to mention the free internet and breakfast as pros but the internet connection never reliably worked and "breakfast", or rather a creative of interpretation of the meal, was sliced white bread and instant coffee. On both accounts though, better than nothing at least and the breakfast area was at least a place for people to gather and meet each other.

I spent most of my days doing nothing in particular. Had a daily meal of the best naan bread I’ve ever had in my life. Usually the bread and dahl was all I needed (which it seemed to the chagrin of the shop owners which always seemed uncomfortable that I didn’t order something else, cheap whitey). Found Indian sweets in Little India as well and was in heaven.

 

I’m not sure if I mentioned prior, I probably did, but my Washington Mutual ATM card refused to work, not even once, in Malaysia. Because of which, I of course could not pull out money. I fortunately had Thai baht I could convert and then after that was depleted, US dollars I could convert as well but I felt these US dollars were my "emergency fund" and hoped to avoid using them as much as possible. The back of my ATM card kindly informs you you can call them collect if travelling internationally, the only challenge was however, finding out how the hell you even do that. Internationally it seems people have no idea what collect calls are; I queried dozens of people on the subject and received blank stares in return. After a lot of internet sleuthing, it seems the only way to call collect internationally is to find a "telecom office" with a human being and request it from them; that was yet another adventure to figure out and when I finally did, they were closed. Forget it, gave up; by that time I only had a few more days to go before I left back to Thailand where I knew it worked.

So as I was saying, I did nothing in particular, and now you can understand a bit more why: I was on a strict budget of only a few ringgit a day of my remaining funds. Cheapest thing to do in the big city: walk around, take pictures and people watch, all of which I did plentifully.
On one particular outing, having investigated the KL tower but turned back after they wanted nearly 50MR to ascend to the top, I strolled aimlessly until a woman dressed sharply sitting with a friend, said hello and asked where I was from, a conversation I’ve had nearly everyday of my trip. Conversation deepened as this friendly woman asked me about all manner of topics mostly focused around the US. I mentioned LA in passing and saw as she lit up and explained that her cousin was moving to the LA area soon to become a nurse. While explaining she reached into her purse and pulled out a small slip of paper with an address in Beverly Hills which glancing at, I told I knew the area but not the hospital. So excited she, got on her phone to speak to her cousin and asked me pleadingly if I would be so kind as to talk to her cousin to reassure her and discuss the US before she left; we could all meet for lunch. Having nothing else to do, having a heart always willing to help and an interest in meeting people, I said I would be glad to help.
I’ve told this story now a number of times to various people and this is the only part that in retrospect, I feel ashamed at but of course and especially for this whole chain of events, hindsight is 20/20.
I got into their car. I was taken not far from the city, near Malori MRT station, to a non descript house in a row of other non descript houses with which if you asked me again to find, I could never tell you. Into the nicely furnished house, I was sat on a couch and a cup of tea offered to me which I accepted. A man walked in who was referred to as "uncle" despite their ages being too similar; I figured it was a nickname or term of endearment like in Indian culture. The man was very pleased to meet me and was excited to say I was the first foreigner ever to his home. He apologizes that the girl I’m supposed to meet is still at the hospital visiting someone ill and will be here shortly. This guy was even friendlier than the last quickly launching into a thorough conversation of politics, life and the US all in very good English. Twenty minutes of conversation, a plate of noodles given to me with my tea, the man within which explains when talking about California that he has never been but went to Las Vegas for his work one time; he explains he works in the Genting Highlands for a casino. Conversation shifted to gambling: Do I gamble? What’s my favorite game? Etc etc. I of course don’t enjoy gambling much and talk a little about craps and some of the pros of that game (crowd enthusiasm, length of play). "Uncle" asks me if they have a game in the US called "Continental 21" (or "Continental Blackjack"). Never heard of it I say. He describes it as a mix between blackjack and poker and eventually asks if I’d like to learn. Sure, why not I indulge. He says its easier if its shown to me and then says something else unintelligible to me and grabs a deck of cards from a bookcase. He motions me to follow him into his lawyer wife’s office and I’m taken just around the corner to a very small air conditioned room, the size of a bathroom, with a 4 drawer black filing cabinet and a small table with padded green felt draped across it. He says his wife discusses legal briefs with clients in the room and after additional querying says the felt was being thrown away from the casino and he opportunistically took a little.
Charismatically the man lays out cards and explains the game to me. The original woman I met enters the room 5 minutes later to come watch. We run through some practice games where I’m told what the face card and next card are and asked what I should. He asks if the game is easy and of course it is when you know the cards. "Aha" he says. Eyebrow raised I question. He leans over to me and repeats what he said earlier which I couldn’t understand: "Do you believe there is a way to win 100% of the time at a casino". Taken back quite a bit, really wondering what the heck this guy is talking about; I say something along the lines of "If you know the cards then yes I suppose so". The exchange went on this vein until he explained he was to go the bathroom and that I should talk with this woman about how I could know about what the cards were. So utterly confused at this point, I look at this woman and ask if she knows what the heck this is about. She shrugs and seems as confused as I am. The man returns and asked if we figured it out then playfully chastises us for not doing our homework for not knowing. He now begins his lesson of explaining how, he, the dealer, can tell me, the player, of every face down and next card. He teaches a set of hand signals which is basically counting with one hand in binary (thumb is the value one, then each reaming 4 fingers is a value of two and palm up is ten). I thought it clever. Then of course the more obvious thought: why would a dealer do this.
He got down to the nitty gritty after this. He said perhaps sometime I would go to his casino and to the VIP room, where there were no cameras he said, and I would be given 30 minutes maybe an hour at his table. This whole situation is just so beyond weird and now its just humorous how ridiculous; I’m still very curious about this whole mystery and ask if he’s ever done something like this before. He says, eight years ago, only once. He saw a German man who consistently lost at his table and after the dealers shift, he met the German at the bar and learned the German hardly even knew how to play and had lost all of his savings. Feeling pity for the man, the dealer asked if he could visit the man later and perhaps he could win back his losses. They met and the plan was set and performed without a hitch; the German won back his losses and then some and opened up a business in Germany and now comes back every year to KL to see his now life long friend the dealer. A touching story of cheating. There’s little segue after that and the man is blathering away about a rich Mahjong player that he’s picking up later and something about cheating this guy with the new "trick" I’ve been taught. I’m rather unclear about these details because I was honestly tuning it all out and just wanting to get the hell out of there.
Once this guy is finally done running his mouth I politely bluff and indicate this is all moving very quickly and that perhaps I’ll be ready when given some more time. The man, equally as politely, rises and says no problem, shaking my hand with a smile and I’m whisked out of the tiny room and out of the door.
On the way out, I ask "What about the girl that’s going to be a nurse?". They give a response, some sort of excuse, I don’t even remember. In the car they ask for my e-mail address, I guess to meet up later and talk to her. I’m asked if its OK I’m dropped off at the MRT (train) station and even asked if I need some change to the fare. Dropped right at the station, and off they went.
……Bizarre I thought, totally bizarre. Totally unsure of what the heck just happened and why. Times like these are some of the few I wish I wasn’t traveling alone: you really want to discuss experiences with someone. Fortunately I had some time left on my mobile and Rachel was but a call away. Took the train back to the city and recounted the whole thing. She thought it sounded rather fishy, with which I agreed, but there were certain details I thought too strange and unique to be some sort of scam and they seemed rather innocent although the man being dishonest for wanting to defraud a casino. My thoughts were either that this man wanted to defraud the casino he was not happy with or perhaps take a cut of the winnings or perhaps simply set me up then turn me in. All I knew was that I wanted no part in it.
Later is when I felt like a complete and utter fool. I searched Google for "kuala lumpur blackjack scam" and was bombarded with results all frighteningly identical experiences to my own. People from all over the world has written on their internet their own accounts of the same scam I somehow got involved in and they all read the same: approached on the street (somewhere in SE Asia: KL, BKK, Siem Reap, Bali) and taken to a home by very friendly people and propositioned to cheat a casino. The other common thread amongst all were that no one was every threatened or force used against them and same for myself: I never once felt threatened. It wasn’t until I got on the internet that I even fully realized what had just happened. If I let their entanglement continue past the point I cut it off, I learned they would have arranged a game between myself and this "Mahjong player" in which I would believe I was winning big then all of a sudden I would make a huge bet and lose it all when my "friends" pulled the rug from under me and cheated the cheater by changing the cards. The experience was bewildering, somewhat funny but tinged with only one scary aspect: my "host’s" tea offering, was likely drugged. I read this detail in some of the internet accounts and still back in the tiny room I will never forget, I felt strange, not right. The moment I started feeling this way I even wanted to get out even more though; I suppose it had the opposite effect than desired by them.
I know after reading all this, some of you, namely my mom, will get a little worked up and be even more afraid for my safety. I don’t know if I can assure you any but I can say this: you can either go through life afraid and sheltered or open and accepting to the good in people (however deep sometimes) and I choose the latter. Time and time again I have experienced (and written about) the hospitality and extreme kindness of local people along my travels. I am friendly, open and generally trusting and this has revealed to me countless amazingly unforgettable experiences…and then also this one more unfortunate one. But was it all that unfortunate? I did come out alive, healthy, with even all my posessions (slightly funny since as you know, I had very little money for them to take anyway and had an ATM card that didn’t even work). What I did come out with was quite the story and a good lesson about life that cost nothing but a few hours of time.
All of it was a lie though, all of it. The cousin, the interest, the friendliness, all a disturbingly elaborate lie. The night after the event I was racked with questions: Why would people do this? How could they have no remorse? Did they not feel for these innocent friendly people they were stealing from? Why were the police not cracking down on this? Were they so friendly and non threatening so police reports aren’t filed? So many questions, still more and more.
Rocked a bit by the experience, but still determined to enjoy the city, I continued my stay not much differently than before (although you won’t find me getting into cars so easily). Another day with nothing to do and no money to spend, I made an impulse post to the KL message board on CouchSurfing.com explaining that I was in the city only one more day and wanted to meet some locals that weren’t out to scam me. I was so pleased at the response! I got so many SMSs from people wanting to show me the town and have a drink. I first met Phang and his new wife (married only 5 days!) and he very graciously treated me to lunch at a great Chinese place with tasty delicious grilled fish and showed me his pictures from a recent China and Vietnam trip he had gone on.

Only an hour or so later, I got a call from another CSer and we arranged to meet up in Bukit Bintang. I SMSed all the others who contacted me and told them to meet me at the same place. At first it was just two us but that grew to three then to four! Was such a great time meeting all these local people and going out to eat, going to the night market and then trying my first durian with them! I think they were anticipating my disgust of the notoriously stinky fruit but I actually enjoyed it! Figures since I never did find its odor stinky at all; still don’t understand why people think that, I guess its very personal. I did only have two pieces though, its very very rich and those mere two pieces did play a bit of havoc with my stomach later. The texture of the fruit is its most distinct quality: divinely smooth like a very fine brie cheese. So grateful to end my stay in KL on such a good note (especially with what happened prior); couchsurfing is such an amazing resource!!

 
This has been a huge post already and I still have so much more to recount, I think its best to separate it out Meet me at the next post….I dare you

18.Mar.09 South East Asia 2009