Welcome to Genting Highlands……Now let me pick your pocket!

Malaysia looks like a developed country from every angle. Kuala Lampur airport is one of the biggest and best in the world; six lane highways take you from the airport to KL city. The route is covered on either sides with lush greenery of evergreen forests which is dotted intermittently only by skyscrapers and beautiful residential layouts. After the bad experience in Colombo of being stuck without money and phone, the first thing I did in KL was to get some Malaysian Ringgits and buy a local SIM with that money. The famous Maxis SIM cards were missing in the vicinity of the airport, so I bought a digi card offered by telenor.

We moved to our first destination in Malaysia – Genting Highlands, a theme resort and casino at a height of 6118 feet above sea level. The now famous Resorts World took birth on these highlands of Genting when a visionary Chinaman Lim Goh Tong concocted the project. Uncle Lim (as the Malaysian saying goes about his casino - "It's very tough to win money from uncle Lim"), one of the richest men in Malaysia (when he died) is said to have come to Malaysia from China with 1 ringgit in his pocket. He then worked hard and built an empire by converting a forested highland into a world class tourist destination. To attract people from every spending category, he built a theme park, a casino and large expanse of malls and shops. Anyone who comes to Genting will end up spending a lot. Every ride, shop and attraction in Genting is designed to encash your emotion. For instance, you will be snapped at various points during your amusement park ride and the pictures will be offered to you at 30 ringgits. Because the tourists feel the ride was once in a lifetime experience, they readily pay for the ride. The best part is that even after spending big, you feel happy about it. You feel that you just had a great time and you deserved this break and a spending spree after all the tough days of work.
Lim Goh Tong made money in construction and mining and investing everything he had in Genting. None of his wealthy friends were ready to invest in his 'crazy' venture because they thought his idea of building a resort at 6118 m was never going to be possible. So Lim did it alone. It took him 3 years to cut a road through the forest. He set up his own power plant and created a drainage system to make the highlands suitable for construction. His efforts bore fruit when the then Malaysian PM visited Genting and granted him the permission to operate the first casino of Malaysia as a reward to his single handed effort to attract tourists to Malaysia. Lim and Genting never looked back; the resort grew in strength and Lim added new attractions in a rope way, theme parks and new resorts. After Genting, Lim also created another integrated resort in the neighbouring Singapore. More about the Sentosa, Singapore resort in the post on Singapore.

Genting also has the world’s largest hotel in terms of the number of rooms. The first world hotel has 6118 rooms (same as the height of the hill in feets) and is a sight worth seeing in the evening with the large plumes of mist engulfing it. The skyway cable car taking tourists from the foot of the hill to the resort is the best attraction in Genting. The engineering marvel will take you on a ride over the lush evergreen forests giving you an experience that’s breath taking. Although the establishment with its mega hotels, fascinating rides (some of them only exist here in SE Asia) and the fastest ropeway in the world is an experience in itself, the service quality is terrible. Almost none of the theme park staff knows English and they are rude to the visitors. One could see the resort staff working without any interest in their jobs all throughout the day and showing maximum energy levels at 5:30 pm when the theme park closed for the day. Visitors were sent back although the scheduled closing time of the park was 7 pm. Lack of maintenance was also visible in most of the rides.

Resorts World is a huge establishment now and they have theme parks in Sentosa islands, Singapore, Manila, Philippines and New York, USA. With expansion into newer economies, seems that the Lim family’s focus has moved away from their first resort. Genting now is money making machine grossing around 3 million ringgits for the family every day. So everything at Genting is about fleecing people. Prices of articles are nearly 4 times the rate outside and the 28 storied One World hotel cram rooms at every possible nook to set the world record. The room will deny you of even basic facilities like room service, wi-fi and even drinking water. With all its positives and negatives, I feel that Resorts World, Genting Highlands Malaysia is an avoidable place. Most of the rides can be experience at Universal Kingdom Singapore under better service quality.