Around South East Asia: Part Four

To the Genting Highlands

08.12.2022: Tour Day 2, City 3

Genting Highlands is a hill station and a city located on the peak of Mount Ulu Kali in the Titiwangsa Mountains, in the state of Pahang, central Peninsular Malaysia, at 1800 meters elevation. The primary tourist attraction is Resorts World Genting, a hill resort where casinos and theme parks are situated and where gambling is permitted. On the way to this hill, we experienced the difference in the climate, from hot to cold.

Awana Skywalk

It is a gondola lift service operated by Genting Resort, providing a quick method (2.8km in 15 minutes) of travel to the peak that overlooks rainforest valleys stretching all the way to KL on a good day. The cable car line begins from Awana Skycentral Complex near Gohtong Jaya town that ends at SkyAvenue on the summit. We reached the ground station at 2pm, got the tickets scanned, and boarded the gondola. The gondola halted at the Chin Swee station and then at the Sky Avenue station. 

The sad part on the day, it was raining! I was accompanied by Rakhee Bharucha, Alka Joshi, Anjali Sahai, Anagha Ukarde, and sisters Mangeshri and Rajeshri Kesari. We reached the SkyAvenue mall at 2:15pm. 

Post that we boarded many escalators and followed Yeeshwari and the yellow flag to have lunch at Spice Garden. As usual, I had lunch with Tanvi and family. We visited the SkyCasino and had a walkthrough at 3pm. The casino resembled like a PlayStation and TimeZone in India. 

We queued up for the entry to SkyWorld. I had a good conversation with Chaitali Kore and her mother Neelima Kore. It was raining all the while. I felt that it could have been better if we could have done the shopping of chocolates and duty free in the evening. We should have visited the theme park in the morning. Since it was raining, the outdoor rides were closed.

Genting SkyWorld

The nine different 'worlds' at Skyworlds consist of Studio Plaza, Central Park, Andromeda Base, Rio, Epic, Ice Age, Robots Rivet Town, Eagle Mountain and Liberty Lane, each with their own unique activities, rides and attractions. We started with the Central Park. We watched the ESD Global Defender: Board a hybrid aerospace fighter, take flight and soar through the galactic skies. With heart-pounding twists and turns, there’s no time to lose in a battle to defend Earth! It's a high speed Ferris wheel in which the seats are like Bats!!

Independence Day: Defiance 

The time has come to defend Earth from an alien invasion! Earth Space Defence recruits, gear up and get ready to be part of an exhilarating space endeavour. This was the first ride we queued up for an hour. We have open queues in India, so we know how long it might take to the ride. But here the queues are like traversing from one room to another with LCD displays repeating the same video clips. It's a 3D interactive ride, with high-speed flight experience.

Then we queued to the Liberty Lane. Invasion of the Planet of the Apes: A pulse-pounding, 3D indoor ride featuring Caesar and other iconic primates battling for survival.

We further went to Robots Rivet Town. Bigweld's Zeppelins: Hop aboard Bigweld's fleet of soaring Zeppelins! A family-friendly ride with controllable motions - fly high and enjoy panoramic views of Robots Rivet Town! And then we queued up for the Rivet Town Roller: Hidden just below Bigweld's Zeppelins is Robots Rivet Town's most adventurous ride! Hold tight as each capsule takes you on a topsy-turvy route! But we could not do the ride due to technical issues. Here I met Anuradha Chavan (this granny is so enthusiastic), Rekha Jadhav, Sampada Jambhekar, Sarita More.

Post this we got lost in the Skyworlds and met the group after 7pm. We drove back in the gondola to the ground station at 8pm. We headed back to the city. The backseats had a lively discussions due credit to Samruddhi Bhurke, Uma Dhume and Padmaja Tewari. We had dinner at Jaipur Mahal and then reached our hotel. I am an adventurous person when it comes to rides, and I wish to complete the maximum of it. Here it felt like doing peanuts. But never mind, we cannot control the rain. In the room, some R&D was going on with the coffee maker. I helped with making hot water. I helped wherever it was needed. I penned down about the day and dozed off. Looking forward with great hope for the next amusement park.

Read next: Around South East Asia: Part Five