As I woke up and gazed outside my window, I realized that we were somewhere over the Malacca Straits as we approached Kuala Lumpur International Airport - KLIA (KUL). Soon the captain made the announcement asking the cabin crew to return to their seat as we were about to land. The one thing I did notice was how incredibly green the landscape below was: lush green palm plantations as far as we could see. The landing was nothing out of the ordinary and we were soon taxiing our way to the assigned aero-bridge for docking.
On our way, I was thrilled to see the Thai Airways special paint scheme ‘Royal Barge’ Airbus 330 which I had read/heard so much about on airliners.net. Little did I know then that this aircraft we saw here would be the same one taking us back to Mumbai from Bangkok after a few days. Within minutes we were out of the aircraft that brought us here. Flying Malaysian Airlines for the first time was a nice experience. We arrived at the satellite terminal where we located a currency exchange and changed money. The moving walkways here reminded me of the first international airport I had seen outside of India - Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS) and how impressed I was to see them that time. We took the aerotrain to the main terminal building and soon were making our way to Immigration. We had got our Malaysian visas earlier so we didn’t have to spend any time at the ‘Visa on Arrival’ counters. Immigration was quick and effortless.
We were picked up in the arrival hall and taken to the parking lot. As per our itinerary, we were to be transferred directly to Genting Highlands by seat-in coach. But we were pleasantly surprised when we realized that we actually had a private car waiting for us. As we left the airport behind and approached Kuala Lumpur, our driver asked us if we wanted to have some Indian breakfast. We told him that we wouldn’t mind that at all and so within a short while we were at Batu Caves.
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This was another nice surprise because initially we had not been able to fit Batu Caves into our travel plan since there were limited travel options to go there and we didn’t have much time available. After a nice South Indian breakfast we roamed around there taking a few pictures. It had been a long time since we had been traveling and we didn’t go the main shrine which was many steep steps away. We paid our respects to the deity from below and then were on our way to Genting Highlands.
The road to reach the cable car station was very picturesque with beautiful hills and woods on either side. We took the Genting Skyway to reach the top. It was a really wonderful experience. As we climbed higher and higher the mist and clouds cover just kept getting more and more dense and soon we couldn’t see anything at all. When we reached the top we started to make our way through the maze that Genting Highlands is. We just walked and walked and walked till finally we arrived at the First World Hotel.
The lobby and the check-in area were nothing short of something at an international airport. We took the token and waited till our number was called. After about an hour we were checked in and took our bags to our room. The room itself was neat and clean but very small and basic. But we were not too bothered by it since we planned to spend most of our time outside. We then got out to try and get some lunch. There were just too many options to explore. And we were really looking forward to enjoying the local cuisine. We finally settled for a nice food joint which served a spicy noodle soup and some other local delicacies.
With lunch taken care of we wandered around in the indoor First World Theme Park for the rest of the afternoon. The indoor theme park was absolutely huge with many rides, though most of them seemed like they were for smaller children. We saw the Venice Gondolas like the ones at The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino at Las Vegas. The Rio Float gave people a top view of the entire indoor theme park. The entire indoor theme park was decorated for Christmas and New Year and all this made the atmosphere very festive.
In the evening, we watched a stage show which had artists performing various local and regional dances which was very enjoyable. As we roamed around more, we came across this nice little Sushi bar. It had been a long day and we were feeling tired with all the travelling and walking around. So we stopped there to eat and decided to call it a day so we would be rested for tomorrow.
