My RM50 phone

"Are u going tomorrow?"
"How much cash are u bringing?"
"Is your car full? can I hop in?"
"I wonder what are they selling."

International KASTAM Day. That was what all the hoo-haa was about. Every single fella in hostel was excited bout this particular day, because there's a KASTAM Sale. What's a KASTAM sale? It's where our Malaysian Kastam sells off smuggled stuff confiscated by them at a very very low price, haha I bet u wish that u could join me!

1st thing that came to my mind when i heard bout this Sale was 'Do they sell handphones?'. I have to admit that i was all excited bout it and was already drooling of me owning a Nokia N90, Nokia N70, Motorola RAZR v3/v3i, or a Samsung D600! How much? All for the maximum price of RM50! Lovely! Unbelievable!



Woke up at 6:00am on a Monday morning, jump out from bed upon feeling the vibration from my hp alarm, ran to the bathroom to have a steamy hot bath and got dressed. My mum & dad saw me and said 'wah, why did u wake up so early?' LoL! they were shocked to see me awake at 6 in the morning. I guess they saw the blue moon? :P

Putrajaya, that's where the Malaysian KASTAM's HQ is. Very big building, easily noticed. It's right in front of u as u drive over that beautifully designed bridge. Btw, i heard lots of ppl saying that the view from the aeroplane of Putrajaya is nice, is it true?

There was already a crowd of 1000 people when i arrived at 7:30am. Yea, it was crazy. Obviously, there were lots of young people there for the same reason that i was there - to get the RM50 handphone. Without hesitation, me and my 'full-semangat' buddies joined the crowd and squeezed our way through to get in line. Though it was still early in the morning, and the sun was obscured by the fluffy clouds, but beads of sweat was forming on my face! Cos the heat generated by 1000 people = afternoon sun.



See the crowd in the picture? The whole place was chaotic. We were all wondering, how come there's so many people attending this Kastam Sale? Don't they need to work? Don't they have classes to attend? (Fortunately i have my Monday free) Or most probably they ask for half day work, and students ponteng classes for the sake of RM50 hp? Truly Malaysians.

8:00am. Some guy stood on a ladder right in front of the crowd with a loud speaker and yelled "There's only 1,300 units of hp on sale, and it will only start at 2pm!" right after he said that, i felt as though i was in a riot crowd. Almost everyone was screaming away, condemning the fella who said that. "Kastam bodoh! Oi, buka kedai la! Boooooooo! *(&@#(*@&^#&$@ many many vulgar words came out from the mouth of Malaysians. As for me, i was busy protecting my white shoes from being stepped on, and also having both my arms in front of my chest protecting myself from being squashed to death. Truly Malaysians.

Having 6 long hours to wait till 2pm, me and my friends who have better brains decided to abandone the crowd after 6 minutes and head for breakfast 1st. Thinking that we have had our breakfast which gives us full of energy to go through the crowd again, and all the others would somehow feel hungry and tired, thus 1 by 1 leaving the crowd, we were wrong! by 10am when we arrived at the same spot, the crowd has multiplied by 3 fold. There was at least 3000-4000 ppl. (the papers reported 10,000ppl the next day)

4000 ppl: 1300 handphones. Something is wrong with the ratio. Out of 3 ppl, only 1 will get to buy it. Knowing this will happen, our KASTAM management came out with a smart idea. Lucky draw! so the crowd has to pull out an envelope from the box and see what the paper inside the envelope writes. Pray hard! if it writes 'Nokia N90 - RM50' Then, it is your lucky day.


Beras 10kg - RM5
Gula 1.5kg - RM1
Kain Batik - RM5
Basikal - RM50
Handphone - RM50

Well, things didn't turn out as expected. There were no N90, no N70, no D600, no W800i. Basically, there was nothing above the price range of RM400. I pulled my paper out and it wrote 'Nokia 1600 - RM50'. Kinda dissapointed, i asked my other friends whether they got anything good. To my surprise, they had things worst than me!

These were what they(7 friends) had:
1. Nokia 3310 - RM50
2. Nokia 3310 - RM50
3. Nokia 3310(Tanpa Bateri) - RM20
4. Sony Ericsson T630 - RM50
5. Terima Kasih kerana sudi menghadiri Hari Kastam Antarabangsa. (LoL!)
6. -
7. -

Oh yea, while queueing up to get the 1300 envelopes given out, the crowd went crazy. Pushing here and there, lots of people fell down. While being pushed and pulled in the crowd, i saw a row wood-colored batons in front. I wondered what it was. Suddenly, i started to hear yelling of order from the front. Few seconds later, i saw policemen with red crash helmets on, holding a baton on the right hand, and a see-through shield on the left hand! OMG, it was the Federal Reserved Unit(FRU)!!!

I really felt as though i was in a riot, no kidding! Imagine how chaotic the scene was till the extend of deploying the FRU to control the crowd. These FRU started ordering the crowd to make lines. Giving no chance to those not in line, the FRU pulled them with their mighty arms like nobody's business. it didn't matter to the FRUs whether u r a male or female, they pulled the shirt as though it was going to tear any second. I was traumatised.

"Mana barisan kau, KELUAR!"
"Masuk dalam barisan, CEPAT!"

The FRUs threatened those who didn't obey them with their baton. Everyone was shocked and the crowd obediently lined up. However, 5 mins later, it went back to chaos. Suddenly, a well-build FRU man came up 2metres away from me. He zipped open the pouch on his lower back and pulled out a sivery-colored aluminum can. There was a pin at the top of the can. I was very very traumatised.

With his forefinger engaging the ring which was connected to the pin, he threatened by saying "Nak saya tarik tak? Ha? Buat barisan sekarang!". I dunno what the hell was that but i guess it's a tear gas thingy which makes u run like an ant's house being destroyed. Friends of mine were joking bout it, thinking of the possibility of being a FlashBang! (for those who play counterstrike, u know what it is)

Heck, all the pushing, yelling, threatening, and trauma just for a low-end RM50 handphone. Not worth it. i left the crowd at 12noon, and went home to rest. 4.5 hours later i went back to retrieve my Nokia 1600. They said "oh, stok habis la.. hanya tinggal Nokia 2300"



So, there goes my color screen new model from Nokia (which i found out it was NEW after i went home), it cost bout RM350 in the market. Thus, now owning a Nokia 2300 without color screen. *sob sob Anyhow, i gave it to my mum as a Valentine Gift. hehehhe! That's the good point of not having a gf. My mum = my gf!

If there's any Kastam Sale going on next year. I will not be there. It's pure stupidity to go for such a sale. yea, i'm pretty stupid for going for Kastam Sale 2006 haha! *Smack! (smack me please?)

Malaysians, anything cheap will attract them. If there's free food and drinks, the crowd would be bigger. Malaysians, Truly Malaysia. Don't u think so?