An Indian-origin man from Malaysia went to Singapore and spent a whopping USD 573 to put up at a luxury hotel for one night so that he could get a chance to meet US President Donald Trump ahead of his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Maharaj Mohan, a 25-year-old consultant, checked into his room at the Shangri-La hotel yesterday and started hanging at the hotel lobby today for a glimpse of Trump, Today newspaper reported.
However, all Mohan got for his trouble was a selfie with The Beast, the eight-tonne bulletproof limousine in which the US President travels, the report said.
"Singapore dollar 765 (USD 573 or Rs 38,600) is a big sum, more than 2,000 in ringgit. But it is not too much to meet the president," he said.
Mohan said that he knew he had a one per cent chance of meeting Trump.
Staying in the hotel wing adjacent to Trump, Mohan had been stationed at the hotel lobby since 6.30 AM today to track the president's movements.
Yesterday, he had stood in the lobby for five hours, in a vain attempt to get the president's signature on his number one bestseller Trump: The Art Of The Deal.
All he managed to catch was a glimpse of Trump at about 8 AM today when he left the hotel for the summit in Capella hotel on Sentosa island.
"It is lonely being a Trump supporter in Malaysia," Mohan, a consultant at his father's consultancy and training firm, said.
"Everyone told me there is zero chance, one per cent chance (of catching Trump) even being within 20 km radius of the president... But who knows? Sometimes the impossible can happen," he said.
He said that his admiration for Trump gets him "a lot of hate".
He said that Trump first caught his eye in 2007 when he won a "battle of the billionaires" in the World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) WrestleMania.
North Korean leader Kim today agreed to work toward "complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula" in return for security guarantees from the US as Trump wrapped up his historic summit which he described as "honest, direct and productive.
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