Crazy impromptu trip up Genting!

*This entry is going to be wordy but useful for any young drivers who wants to drive up Genting, to hear what you can expect from its tropical weather.

For the first three months of this year, I've arranged for three Genting trips, exactly once a month. Sounds pretty crazy! February with Swing's family as a CNY trip and March with the Zhous as our first overseas trip!

The Zhous actually had a planned trip to Genting in January but WTS quoted me a wrong price and we decided to just abandon the trip. Both Swing and I took leave already so we decided to just rest at home instead. On Thursday, Swing's Aunty and Uncle decided to drive up to Genting and we were asked along. So after my last lesson on Friday, we went up to Genting around 8pm. It was a rather interesting experience.

Custom jams
We left at 8pm but we were caught in the custom jams for almost 2 hours. We had dinner at our favourite abalone noodles near the lok lok van we frequently patronise (http://zombieriddled.blogspot.sg/2012/03/late-night-lok-lok-jb.html), pumped petrol, set our GPS and off we headed towards the highway, it was almost 11 already.

Raining along the highway

On the route to Genting, your vehicle will be in the highway for 2 to 4 hours depending on your speed. Along the highway, the rain poured and it is impossible for Swing's uncle to drive fast at all. Only certain parts of the highways have lamp posts and mostly were just relying on the reflective plates along the road. To be safe, for around 2 hours, we were going between 80 to 90km/h. 

In Kuala Lumpur

The thing about entering Kuala Lumpur is that, after paying toll (ERP in Malaysia) with your "Touch & Go"card, your GPS might not be clear enough to direct you to the correct road to enter because there are a few different directions. I missed the correct one with my Dad's first trip to Genting and we had to go up Genting with the old mountain road with NO LIGHTS AT ALL. After entering into Kuala Lumpur, there are a few short roads where you can easily miss from the GPS because the GPS will overlap its instructions due to the short distance. Your first drive might take a longer time, but once you manage to remember the correct way, the route to Genting will be very smooth.

Going up the hill
You can see crazy cars zooming all the way up, overtaking many cars along the way. You have to be on a low gear to "climb"up. Unfortunately for us, there was a thick fog covering the whole hill and our visibility was so low that even with high beam, we couldn't see more than 3m. We had to go really slow.

Below, I have embed 3 videos from a Lamborghini's carview. I guess there were some event at Resort Hotel that there were around 10 Lamborghinis driving up to Genting. The sight should be very magnificent! Best is that this video shows the view from one of the Lamborghini!   

First World Carpark  

We often chose First World Carpark because it is going a little "downhill" whereas the Resort Hotel is going "uphill" into the carpark. Still, the carpark was covered in thick fog. In the carpark, we couldn't see more than 2 parking lots ahead. We had to drive slowly to look out for a lot as well as any person who could be walking across the carpark. Phew, we found a lot and managed to end the drive.

From 8pm to 5am; 9 hours to get to Genting.

It was so freezing cold at 12 degrees. To keep ourselves really warm(I was in shorts for the whole journey), we "camped" inside the casino for most of the time. They went to Genting without booking any rooms and all the rooms were already fully booked.

This view was in the morning around 9am where the mist was clearing. Degree check: 16 degrees.

Had some really blissful comfort food, chee cheong fun at the small coffeeshop beside Old Town White Coffee.

And some Marry Brown goodies :D

We dined in Fortune Kitchen, one of the few restaurants in one of the Casino, using 3 Genting Points each to redeem a meal daily. This was the really awesome view from Fortune Kitchen. You get to see cable cars and scenery.

Not much activities because it was either we were in the Casino or sleeping inside the car. Haha. For 2 days 2 nights, you must be thinking..

Did you even bathe?

Oh please! Yes we did! We spent RM5 to enter the swimming pool and got ourselves clean in the shower room. We took a really long warm shower on the last morning since the pool was not packed at all. I think it is a really good idea if you really can't book any rooms, you could just bathe in the shower room for less than SGD2.50; provided you bring your own shower gels and towel along.

I shall try to blog about my next Genting trip where I can elaborate more on the journey too.
Tata for now!