TacoCat’s Travels #225 (Genting): Gaming and Gambling before Road Trip Home! 🚐

Hey Hive!

If you missed the last few posts, we're currently on our trip up into the mountains of Malaysia, specifically to Genting Highlands, where there's an integrated resort! I've heard about it a lot but never actually been, and Sean was excited to show me around since he used to go there with his family.

Last week, after we finished exploring Genting SkyWorlds which is the outdoor theme park, we went to grab a snack before checking out the indoor theme park called Skytropolis!

This theme park didn't have a general admission ticket so you pay for what you want to play, which I thought was better. Even though it's indoor they still had lots of rides on the first floor, and a huge arcade/carnival on the second floor!

We even took one of the craziest rides in there where we lie down in the pod Superman-style and fly around suspended on an overhead track going round the first floor! It was really fast and I felt like my glasses would fly off any second! After that we were pretty done with rides and went to enjoy a nice crispy roasted duck dinner!

There's still a bit more from our final day here in Genting so let's continue!

12 September 2022. Monday.

There was another light show at the atrium and this one was different compared to the first one we saw. The floating light bulbs even made nice hearts which we thought was perfect for us.

I wonder how many different shows they have; this was a little less kid-centric compared to the first one which had dancing animals and stuff. We figured they showed this one at night since most kids would've gone to bed.

After our very full dinner we went to take a walk to digest and ended up going to the bakery again. Unfortunately there wasn't much left since it was pretty late into the night already.

We ended up going to the upper floors of the resort and found this place called Cyber World!

Turns out it was a gaming area similar to a cyber cafe or a LAN shop where people could come and play games here. There were lots of PC setups and even some VR stuff as well.

And of course there was also a shop section with gaming peripherals and related merchandise.

The whole area was actually quite dark other than neon lights but it was a fairly large area with a variety of setups for different types of games.

We weren't sure what the prices were like but it's been a while since we were in a LAN shop and it's one of the bigger fancier places I've been to.

There weren't that many people playing in there but I did see a few guys playing Valorant which made me laugh since I can't imagine playing it while on holiday.

They had quite a few systems but I guess they only had the popular games available.

It was still pretty cool to see though, and at least they could say they really had something for everyone.

The next place we visited was also "gaming" area, and probably the place that garners the most human traffic here - the casino! This is definitely the biggest draw for Genting since a lot of people like to come here to gamble, and I mean A LOT. When we arrived on Sunday there was such a crowd to get in it was impossible.

It was pretty insane; but we found out that the queue was actually to get this physical card you need in order to play. Since we weren't actually going to play we could just walk in and check out what the hype was all about.

So we walked right in and were actually surprised when we got stopped by security at the entrance. I guess we probably did look like the youngest to enter but we were clear to go of course, after we assured the guard that we were just looking around.

Of course one of the first machines we saw was the ATM machine, and we joked that it was the only machine with a 100% win rate here.

There was definitely lots to see in here though! It was basically boomers everywhere we looked, all gambling on various machines. There were also so many different types of machines too! Even the regular slot machines had a variety, with different characters and things to match.

Some of the machines looked like the ones we'd seen in arcades. And we were joking about the irony that boomers would lecture us about gaming and staring at screens all day when here they were, doing the same thing but losing money on top of it.

We wondered where all the people were since it wasn't as crowded as we thought it was (from the line outside the past few days) here at the machines. But we walked around and eventually found where the real crowd was - the card tables!

And what a crowd it was! It was insane how many people were playing, looking to play or just looking on at the tables!

I'm not very familiar with these casino card games like craps or poker but I do know basic blackjack at the very least. Still it was crazy how many boomers were in this one area, all playing so seriously. It was quite quiet for how many people were in the room.

Looking at them playing reminded us of the old casino movies we used to watch. I guess that's why the Oceans series started off here because of how much money moves around in casinos.

Still it was pretty insane how many people would come here to lose their money. We don't gamble so we don't really understand the draw of it. I guess it's the thrill or something but it never appealed to me.

It was still pretty cool to see all the games irl though, since I've only seen casinos in movies and TV shows, never actually been in one until now.

We even saw some older folks playing by themselves on tablets at tables without dealers. I guess it's digital poker or something?

It is pretty impressive that these boomers who typically don't even know how to use their own phones know how to play all these games though.

I think if I sat down at one of these machines I wouldn't know what to do since I don't even know how the games work. And yet here these old folks are playing non-stop.

It was crazy to think how much money this casino has probably earned all these years from all these people. But I guess as long as they're happy playing it's they prerogative.

We trying to guess the average age of everyone here and we figured it must be at least 40. We were definitely one of the youngest people in the casino though, judging by the clientele here. I guess that's why we got stopped at security.

The casino actually has 2 huge floors, and we found our way to the second floor where there were more machines and we got an overhead look at all the card tables, which was an impressive sight.

After that it was finally time for us to head back to our hotel and retire for the night. On to our final day where it was mostly just us heading home!

13 September 2022. Tuesday.

We didn't have much planned for today since we were going off and leaving Genting today. For the trip back, we booked a coach that would take us all the way back to Singapore so we wouldn't have to worry about going back to the airport from KL.

Our coach was scheduled to leave at around 2pm so we had some time to kill. We went to get lunch in the meantime and since we hadn't had it yet, we headed to McDonald's to try their special Nasi Lemak.

We thought it'd be crowded but it was actually fairly empty before noon. I guess it being Tuesday also helped.

We would also get some food on the coach later so we just decided to share the nasi lemak meal. It actually looked pretty legit, just like any regular nasi lemak.

The rice wasn't as fragrant as some others I've had, but the chicken was nice and crispy of course, and the chili was a little sweeter than I expected but overall it was still pretty good. Not bad for McDonalds' but after all it is Malaysia's national dish so I guess they can't screw it up.

After that we made our way to the coach area and got there early so we knew where to go. There were many coaches that went to Singapore but we  booked Transtar Express since theirs looked pretty fancy and it was quite a journey.

We were still pretty early so we waited at this OldTown White Coffee shop until it was ready to board.

Turns out we had to take a bus first to a certain area before we would transfer to our actual coach. I guess that bus is too big to come all the way up to this part of the mountain?

It was a nice clear day to take a roadtrip though, and we said goodbye to Genting as we left.

Shortly after we arrived at a huge bus bay where then boarded the actual Transtar coach that would take us all the way back to Singapore.

This one was definitely more lux, with fancy leather chairs and there were two floors but a family had already reserved the first floor which was a big seating area with couches.

We went all the way to the back of the bus since it was the only place with seats together and funnily enough this one had an interesting installation that was basically a car dashboard built right into the back of the bus!

I guess it's to serve as a divider between the rest of the seats and also to give some privacy back here? It was pretty interesting though, since from the front it could look like I was in my own separate car.

The seats were actually really comfortable though, definitely better than an airplane for sure since it also had plenty of legroom. Each seat also came with its own mini TV screen so we could just watch movies while on the drive back.

And for the most part the trip was good. We relaxed while we traveled across Malaysia. Sean's family used to take road trips up to Genting so he was more familiar with this process. My family only used to drive to Malacca or Kuala Lumpur so I've never been on these roads before.

We did have a few rest stops since it was quite a long trip on the road. I guess this was a common rest stop since there were quite a few other coaches around.

This rest stop also had a souvenir shop where a lot of the other tourists bought some snacks.

It was quite a big shop with lots of local snacks and stuff. The good weren't that cheap so I think they might have marked up the prices for tourists like us.

I think we might have bought some sweets that did not taste very good.

We returned back to the coach after that and settled in for another leg of our roadtrip.

We were served lunch after a little bit and I think there was a menu we could choose from online when we bought our tickets. Both of us chose fried rice with Szechuan Chicken.

After a few hours we stopped at another rest stop for a short bathroom break. These Malaysian rest stops were kinda all the same though, not the cleanest but it was something.

The road trip was going well until we had an unfortunate accident in the form of a flat tyre. We ended up getting stalled on the road for quite some time and eventually had to switch buses just before we arrived at the customs checkpoint.

Our trip back got extended by at least 2 hours because of the accident but thankfully no one was hurt or anything, it was just an unfortunate inconvenience. We were already pretty close to Singapore by that point and after we changed buses it was smooth sailing from there.

This new bus had a different configuration so but the back was still the same with seats together just without the weird car dashboard divider. Eventually we arrived back home safe and sound, pretty late into the night but we were just relieved to be back.

And that's all for this trip! Hope you enjoyed our first trip to Genting because we sure did! It was fun experiencing another new place together and making new memories although some were better than others.

Thanks so much for reading and tune in next time for another adventure!

To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!

---

Check out my previous post in this series!

TacoCat’s Travels #224 (Genting): Fun, Food and Games at Skytropolis!

Disclosure: Posts on TravelFeed may contain affiliate links. See affiliate disclosure.