Update from Sept 2nd

"I must say, I have absolutely nothing against Genting Highlands before this visit. It's always been this far off place that wild college kids and rabid tourists run off to so they can forget about life, gamble, get laid, drunk or appease their equally rabid child who nags them about it every day since they heard about it from a friend of a friend of a friend. Granted, my increasing dislike of the place only began when I realised about two weeks ago that it was the destination for my Family's Raya vacation, and I was inevitably dragged along. Yes, perhaps my mood had already been sour from having two co-pilots telling me how to drive, and there may have been a little ire garnered from the ride up, where our rented city car overheated climbing the roads. The hours that me and my dad took circling around hunting for a parking space may have also added to my already growing distaste for the mountain retreat.

With this in mind, I will deliver my completely unbiased opinion about the rundown, overcramped and racially confused mountain resort that is Genting Highlands.

While our car was having it's overheat session in the middle of the road, I took the opportunity to survey the buildings that I would be confined to for the remainder of the journey. The impression was no different from what I had come to expect from Riverside in Kuching; Moss lined, and generally unkempt. The resort was old, and the management was making no move to hide the fact. The hotel where my family put up in had a paint job not unreminiscent of a clown's bachelor pad.I must clarify however, I do not intend to insult the Genting Highland itself. the mountain air and scenery was fantastic. Cold, but fantastic. It was only the rather ugly assortment of mismatched buildings that made the proverbial boob of this beautiful mountain have a particularly ugly tit.

I probably should give allowance to the fact that it was the Raya holidays; any resort would understandably be crammed during a nation's vacation period. The only Issue I had with it all was the crowd that filled this resort. While circling the parking lots we saw cars parked up the ramps, cars parked in front of other cars and cars lining up the tow zones. It was a general "don't give a fuck" attitude that these people had, ignoring the tow signs and parking wherever they pleased. Remember when I said they parked up the ramps? I wasn't kidding. fortunately this rabble had the common sense not to block up the major ramps, so all the other people coming to Genting Highlands only had to make giant fucking loops around the parking lot cause there were only two ramps per floor. More than once we saw people literally camping up there in the parking lots; food, mat spread out and fucking munching on their sandwiches in their lots like it's noone's business.

The sheer volume of people coming in rendered the lifts unuseable, so we had to carry all the bags up 4 floors. The lobby itself was not unlike a government office; people were queuing up to get numbers like they were applying for I.Cs, and I'm sure any one of you don't fondly recall your last visit to renew or get anything from a government office.

I can however give credit to the hotel for their rooms; at only 200 a night the rooms were of reasonably good quality. Tired and short tempered as the whole family was from the trip up, we all pretty much collasped and napped the remainder of the afternoon off. The facilities here in Genting are ok, but they don't live up to the standard people come to expect from it being the premier mountain resort in the country.

The central zone was, in effect, a warhouse building with a painted roof. I'm serious about the roof bit; fucking curved zinc roof painted light blue with daubs of white to simulate clouds. various rails to various roller coasters criss crossed the area and the sheer number of building props inside this central warehouse was so dense it looked like something me and alice might cook up in Minecraft.

If there's one good thing I could say about the building props inside that central warehouse, it would be that they were done well. The vietnamese zones looked vietnamese, the replica of Big Ben really looked like Big Ben and even the various bridges crossing the canals weren't half bad. The problem with it all though? The fact that there were so many different themes. I hadn't seen such sudden changes and indescisive arrangement in the construction of the place since Grand Indonesia; but at least Grand Indo could afford such drastic alterations from western to oriental themes; the thing carried throughout the entirety of their two buildings and massive sky bridge. Genting Highlands tried to do that, but with the space equivalent to a storage zone for timber in a lumber lodge. You simply could not tell if they were trying to implement a venetian canal with all the gondolas or a vietnamese restaurant by the Mekong River.

But honestly though, I'm probably saying all this cause I'm edgy; coupled from the rather stressful day and being in proximity with the family again has me especially critical of my surroundings. Perhaps another day here in the cold mountain air might cool me off enough to view all this in a positive manner, perhaps I might be dragged along to the theme park by the family and have my temper stretched to breaking point. Guess I'll just have to wait till tomorrow to see. "