6.30pm now back from the incredible experience of Genting Highlands.
On the way back up to the station this morning I asked for 'tarik' - what came was 'Karot' juice, sweetened, and very pleasant.
My run of good luck continued on my return to Gembak station to await the 11am bus. Had not appreciated the scenario until I watched the 10.30am bus leave. In the interim got chatting with a mature lady, and she explained that the people with 10.30am tickets had boarded and the crowd around the bus door were those with a later ticket hoping for a vacant seat. As indeed she was hoping to use her 11.30am ticket on my bus.
I took up my allocated seat and luckily for me, she got on too at the last minute.
The stop is 56km from KL, pretty much climbing all the time, starting 3 lanes, then two and more windy. Overtaking cars with smoky exhausts.
We arrived in a sea of humanity, I would have wasted time if my friend had not taken me - the queue for the kabel cars was two hours long, and they take 2000 people per hour the 3.5km ride up the mountain. We went straight to the front of the queue! Turned out my friend had a member pass for the casino which allowed her to bypass the 4000 others plus take a friend.
We were 8 in the kabel, it puts the QT gondolas to shame, it really does. The 11 minute trip ascended the cloud forest with lush dense growth below at times, otherwise completely enshrouded. As Milford on a bad day, I saw nothing of the scenery all day and did not see the brighly coloured hotel.
The engineering to create the ride was incredible but matched by the unimaginable opulence at the top. I've still 'coming down' figuratively off that mountain now. Its a huge casino, acres, and I went to the indoor theme park which is like disneyland.
Countless thousands of people, and only saw one other white person. I walked about gazing and gasping, looking at the casinos, the food, the shops for those who have struck lucky. I can't exaggerate the number of people, and gaming machines and the size of it all. The crowds were because of the national holiday today.
At one point I took a photo of one of the line up of very smart cars, I asked and discovered they can be won by high rollers. It was the first time I have seen postcards so I bought a set and some teenage lads were politely told not to eat in the shop. I said 'they are hungry boys' which humoured them, and quick as, one said. 'we are hunky boys.' Just like Gil, with a sparkle in the eyes, they took up, 'do you think we are hunky miss?'
One of the lunch places offered a set menu for twice the cost of my next three mights in Melaka. I found a more suitable buffet: rice, one meat two vege choices and a drink for MYR 18 - NZ7.20. I asked the lady beside me in the queue which meat was least spicy and she guided me through the buffet process.
I was able to pass on the kindness of my queue-jumper when this lady asked, could she use my meal to add to her points, kinda like casino fly buys. The next thing I'm enjoying conversation and lunch with her, husband and toddler. She is an accountant and he grows pinapple and papaya and sells at the gate.
I noted the toddler'a name was Moslem and she agreed. I said, but you are not veiled. She said with humour that she was not Moslem at the casino.
Just an awesome experience, so many tens of thousands of people, escalators going several stories up and down the mountain, I surely I didn't see half of it as I hardly went outside due to the rain, visibility was about 20m max.
Check out 'First world resort' and try to picture the experience.
I only bought lunch and the postcards. Example teh tarik is .50sen here across the road and was 4.20 up there.
On the downward kabel car I spent 11 minutes with a delightful Saudi Arabian couple. She was fully veiled and so I asked very open questions and made a step towards a culture of which we are so ignorant - replete with exchanges of photos and lots of laughter.
Got rather lost in the complex at the bottom of the aerial trip, trying to find the bus without a queue-jumping cobber. It was six stories of 'exit through the gift shops' and I didn't realise this. Is the bus up or down from here? How on earth do I navigate to the toilets? I can see the sign. Usual answer, ask someone.
The bus - you mean, you were expecting just one bus? At the correct level, the touts were out again, 'teksi, teksi no buses they stopped now'.
Locating, with help, the correct point to wait, I was pleased to have learned the process this morning of hoping to get on earlier than my ticket allowed. At the last minute, I got on the service 30 minutes prior, and blow me down, there was my queue jumping friend - she got in ahead of me. She'd had a moderately lucky day.
Half the passengers would have heard me exclaim monkeys! when the coach slowed and there was a troupe on the roadside. Soon, picture our coach passing big trucks and boy racers on motorbike overtaking between us, this on tight downward curves.
Also waiting in hope to board that bus had been three young Africans, they ended up in the front carriage of the train with me. They are Somali students from Canada. They showed me to stand at the front of the (driverless) train looking out the big glass window - oh boy the track was coming at us too fast it was dizzying.
Time to eat.
xxM
