Genting: Malaysian gambling paradise

My first time gambling and I won!

Three days ago my girlfriend and I went to Genting Highlands, located 50km north from Kuala Lumpur. It was a trip, organised by my girlfriend's boss. We were a group of around 16 people, arranged in four cars, starting off from Batu Pahat.

It was my first time in Genting and also first time experiencing Malaysian cold highland climate. The temperature was around 15 degrees Celsius, which is no wonder to me, since the resort is located 1850m above sea level. Almost the whole stay, there was a thick fog surrounding the whole resort, especially the last day. It really felt like heaven. I mean, it's in the clouds, you have shopping malls, theme parks, restaurants, casinos and many pretty Asian girls. if that's not how heaven looks like, then I really don't know, how can it be any nicer. :)

Anyway, that doesn't mean, I liked everything. In fact, I was a bit disappointed at first. Since I told myself not to gamble. First shock is the climate change, it was about 17 degrees difference comparing to KL, so I felt pretty cold in my shorts and sandals. We stayed in the First World Hotel, one of the biggest hotels in the world, it has over 6100 rooms, it's like a small town itself. We parked the cars in the garage, took the lift up to the lobby. There was hundreds of people waiting to check in - it was like at the airport. We had to wait 1h to get the keys to our rooms. So, be prepared to wait if you go to this hotel.
The room was nice, quite big, 2 beds, so big, that 2 people can sleep on 1 bed. The TV was small and didn't have any special programmes, but we didn't watch it anyway. The water comes from the mountains, that's why you can drink it from the tab. I only missed a toothpaste, since I forgot mine. The hotel provides you only with towels, soap and a shower cap. You have no blow dryer, so bring one, if you wanna wash your hair every day.

Well, the first and second day, we were exploring the place. It's basically 4 hotels connected together by various subways, underpasses, lifts and even trains. There's some kind of a plaza in the middle, where you have many trahsy immitations of the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel's tower and Big Ben. You even have a part that looks like Venice, with Gondolas, who run in circles (automatically) and with a fake Gondolier. It was amazing to me, that some people actually ride these things. Besides all these fake touristy stuff, there's a wide range of international food chains (KFC, McD, BK and Pizza Hut), asian food restaurants, coffee shops (Starbucks, Coffee Bean, Old Town) and almost all clothes and shoe brands. So if you wanna shop, there's plenty of opportunities, but the prices can be from modest up to very high. Food is also more expensive than the rest of Malaysia, for example, McD set costs about 50% more than usually. You also have a lot of souvenir shops, cinemas, bowling, snooker, video games, karaoke, a big concert hall with international singers and an outdoor theme park. So that's the reason why Genting is called 'City of entertaiment'.
Anyway, if your a gambler and a fan of cheap trashy entertainment, Genting is the best place for you. But for me, it doesn't have a great value, since I'm not a gambler and not into theme parks.

But I have to say, it was exciting for me, to experience the world of Casinos. It was my first time. In Genting, there's 3 casinos, small, medium and big. I've been in the last two. First we went to the medium one and it seemed quite big to me already. But when we entered the big one, whoa, it was enormous. And so many people, of whiche were 95% Chinese, the rest was Western, Indian and some Arabs, I think. Anyway, Chinese people love to gamble, I knew that already before, but when you see it in real, it's even more impressing. Many come from as far as China or Singapore. And besides gambling, many are looking for some cheap China girls, who would follow you to the room for small money. When my girlfriend's friend was gambling, I stood next to her. Suddenly a 50 something Chinese man started a conversation with her, thinking she was a China girl. So inbetween, he emptied his pockets like he was searching for something and put a bunch of hundred ringgits on the table, but we knew he was just showing off with his money. The whole thing stopped when she told him that she's a local girl. Chinese girls born in Malaysia and Chinese girls from China are two different worlds. It's a different mindset and different mentality. China girls have a bad reputation of being cheap and willing to do anything for small money, while Malaysian Chinese girls are the opposite.

So while the first day I was a mere observer, the second day I decided to gamble myslef. I broke my rule and said: Why not! Juts to try. So I set myself a limit of 50 ringgit, which is only 10 euros. So I changed to two 25rm chips and I played the Banker/Player game, which had a minimum bet of 25rm per game. And guess what: I won 300 ringgit! Inbetween I even reached 400rm, but then I lost 100 and stopped playing. I changed the chips for money, so I won about 60 euros. Not bad for a first time player. My girlfriend lost 200 rm in 2 days, her boss even lost many hundreds, which is crazy. I would never bet so much and gamble so extensively. I was very safe and only bet 25 per game, sometimes 50. So I slowly reached to 400. I wanted to see, if I can make some big money, but I soon recognized my limits, so I stopped at the right time. But I feel it's not bad, starting with 50 and winning 300. So I basically got the money back for my trip expenses. This was the highlight of the whole trip.

The next day we returned to Batu Pahat, it took us 7h, because we made several stops. I'm happy that it's over, because I was very tired yesterday. We gambled until 4am the night before. So today I'm just taking it easy.

[My KUALA LUMPUR page][Related post: More Genting Highlands images]

[My MALAYSIA page][My BATU PAHAT page][All photos by MKL, 2008]