Morning 5:30 we were in Kuala Lumpur, It was looking more like outside of Mumbai central train station except a partial view of it’s famous twin tower Petronas and some other good looking buildings on the background, but I was happy as I was finally out of Singapore and in some new country. Now the big question, how to plan our 4 precious days. With a brief discussion with Hiren, we came up with a rough plan, it was like this, Day 1 we will go to Genting Highlands, which is a mountain city with lots of entertainment and hotels to stay in, Day 2 go to Penang, Catch a ferry to Langkawi Islands, stay in Langkawi for two days, on Saturday comeback to KL, stay night in KL book bus to Singapore for Sunday afternoon, by that time see as much KL as possible. The plan looked all right.
It was 6:00 am in the morning after our agreement about going to Genting, the booking offices were opening at 7:00 am. We had full one hour to kill. KL bus stop was no better than any Indian State Transport bus stops, but as George Bush say in his lousy speeches “we will prevail” the queue was very long considering the fact that it was 6 am in the morning so we thought Genting must be very popular place. We took turn in using man’s room (which was horrible as no water and long queue) at last 7 am and the ticket window opened, suddenly the long line comes to life and every body started rushing towards the small window. Within seconds the line became uncontrolled mob and everybody was charging towards the small window, pushing and hitting everybody around, as Bush in Iraq and we at the KL bus ticket counter found out the hard way that prevailing in war or buying bus tickets in KL is not easy at all. In the end we got tickets for 8:30 bus. We were very satisfied by our hard work and we have prevailed. We boarded the bus at 8:30, as soon as we got out of KL’s bustling morning traffic; we saw hills with magnificent cave entrances. Later only I found out that they were the world famous Batu caves just outside KL. Batu caves are natural wonders and also there is a Hindu temple inside! After an hour’s journey we started ascending, after reaching some height we saw some magnificent mountain range, it was beautiful. Within half an hour we were near the top of the mountain and very close to Genting, suddenly we saw a white fog on the curvy road ahead. I thought fire in the jungle but to my surprise and amazement it was a cloud, very cool cloud, from there on our journey to Genting was like journey to heaven as there were clouds everywhere, and it was cold!! The buildings were all covered with clouds; we were unable to see beyond 2-3 floor, it was like magic kingdom. When we reached at the foothills of Genting, there was a huge crowd lining up to go up on the mountain in Cable car.
It was a long line with almost 500 people infront of us. We decided to wait and went to have some food as we were hungry, in nearby restaurant. There for the first time I have encountered the Indian ness exist in very root of Malaysian culture, many of the “authentic” Malay food names were like roti, daal, pratha etc are all Indian names and they were the same Indian roti, daal, parathas!! We had roti and daal as breakfast and some tea which also surprisingly made like Indian tea! Back in the line, it took us 45 minutes when we got chance to get a cable car, but instead the security guard took us in another direction, were he signed towards a bus and told us that cable car will take another 1 hour, if you want reach at the top early you can go by bus!! What the??! But in the end we took bus, When we reached to Genting there were big hotels everywhere and strangely no houses!! Hmm.. interesting.
When we reached at the bus stop in Genting it was at the gate of Genting Hotel, and bloody it was Freeeeeeeeezing…. And we were ill prepared for this kind of terrible cold, as we were never imagined in our wildest dreams (and also never bothered to ask anybody) that there will be a place near equatorial hit and humidity which will be this cold that we need winter clothing. But again my all-ble Starbucks came to the rescue it was there inside the hotel, thank God and America for Starbucks – a life savior. After admiring the beautiful (and freezing)outdoor with the cup of cappuccino, we entered the hotel. Within 15 mins we knew why Genting was so popular. It’s a gambling capitol of Malaysia, which is pre-dominantly a Muslim country and gambling is banned in Islam. But rightly so and ironically too, the Casinos are banned for Malaysian Muslims??!! Only non-Malaysian Muslims and tourists are allowed
Next: More Genting Fun
https://mouthshut.com/diary/gigcrtqt/Chapter-3-More-Fun-at-Genting
