Riding the Sky in Genting Highlands

SO I was there up at the mountain yesterday to do a little bit of escapade after such a long and tiring week. My sister’s family was here in KL so I tried to be a good host to them by offering myself to be their tour guide and driver at the same time.

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They actually came up with a last-minute plan of going to Malacca but I had to stay back due to my work commitment. Since my leave was already approved for Friday, I just thought may be I should do a one-day trip to Genting Highland with mom so that it wouldn’t just go to waste.

It wasn’t my first time of going up there but it was certainly my very first time of going on a cable car. The closest to getting on one was a few years ago when I went to Singapore for the first time. I wanted to get into Sentosa Island in a bit of a style so I decided to go there on a cable car. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, the cable car was closed due to some ongoing maintenance work.

Of course now that I am in KL and I have Genting right in my backyard (literally – LOL), I am so thankful that I didn’t waste my hard-earned SGD60 to get on a cable car in Singapore.

I mean, why should I when I can get on one with just MYR12 for a return ticket in Genting Highland?

Of course you wouldn’t expect things to go smoothly when you do something for the very first time. It’s like getting on a plane for the first time when you gotta look around to see how other people fasten their belts or even turning the reading light on.

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I didn’t know that cable cars would keep going (moving) without waiting for all the seats in each of the cars to be fully occupied. We jumped into the very first car that approached us at the boarding platform EVEN when it was already tight with passengers.

It was so cramped up one of the passengers had to jump to the other side of the seat to make more space for everybody. A little bit of argument ensued when his shifting made the other side quite tight and uncomfortable. Oppsy! LOL.

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We just looked at each other when we saw empty or near empty cars wheezing past us later but of course it was too late to frog-jump to another car 😀

Bet then, they punished us later with their super-loud volume and booming laughter all throughout the ride. After all, there were (tourists) from China.

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It was fun – alright – but it was nerve-wrecking. HELL it was. No matter how much you are assured of the safety, the worries are still there uninvited and haunting.

I am not sure how many times I heard my mom mumbled ‘Oh Jesus’ and I had the toughest of time trying to make her enjoy the ride. I mean, that was the intention of going there in the first place – to enjoy the ride and not to be scared shit of the height and all. LOL.

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The ‘hook’ that holds the car to the cable doesn’t look at all convincing. In fact it looks quite flimsy I almost expected it’d snap off at any time any minute if bad luck happened to befall us on that very day of the year.

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In the end I had to rely on the fact that there’s never been any incident of a fallen cable car SO FAR just to assure myself that it was 100% safe. It would have made it to the headlines if there was any. We can’t be that lucky to be the first persons to fall with a fallen cable car here in Genting Highland. It would be a SURE DEATH. o.O

The ride was much longer that I had expected. It was so long (and so worth the money) my mom actually kept asking when it was going to end. It cruises from one tower (or should I call it a shaft?) to another along the sagging cable and the shuddering and screeching sound that it makes every time it slides past the tower makes it all the more scary.

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We were there when it was about to rain so it was thick with fog and there were times when visibility was almost zero. Looking at the cars breaking from invisibility to visibility through the thickness of the fog makes the experience even more exhilarating and surreal. It was like floating on the cloud 9 or something. LOL

There was a little bit of relief when we finally made it to the other end of the cable still in one piece. Then a macabre realization washed over us when we realized that we had to go back to where we came from – and very much in the same way.

Hoh shit.