The Genting Rave Story Pt 3

There isn’t much to complain about KL city. There are mega malls at almost every corner that will make VivoCity feel like a convenience store. The nightlife is preponderantly more vibrant and there is this precarious juxtaposition of suspicious back-lanes and rustic hawker affairs painted into their ultra urban backdrop.

The only thing that I couldn’t digest was the state at which they so daringly front their Fast Food Chains, because it is a blasphemous abuse of the fast food manifesto; quick service.

We popped in to A&W for a hotdog and what we got was 20mins of waiting. It’s a fucking hotdog and we had to wait as if they were preparing a full 9 course Chinese dinner. Lance Armstrong would have cycled round France twice.

The ride up to Genting was a brisk hour or so but getting out to a cold breeze was every bit as welcoming as a garland, Hawaiian bikini dancers and fruit punch. Just pulling out a jacket and shivering beneath was a therapeutic ease from any discomfort we had from sitting in the cab.

There was only one thing that needed our immediate attention and that was securing our transport back on Sunday. RotiPrata got back from the bus terminal shortly without a trace of emotion on his face.

He: “No more buses available for Sunday.”

If there was a prize for predicting things correctly, I would have shouted, “I FUCKING KNEW IT!” at the top of my lungs and then flung myself downhill. I was going to do anything to get back, even if it meant hiring janitors to sleigh me down in a push cart.

Everything was collapsing faster than Tetris on speed. The taxi drivers were quoting us RM1000 for four people when we had five. It seemed that complacency was going to cost us dearly, but at least we finally settled on a MPV for RM900.

Now surely there was nothing that was going to stop this from blowing into an insane Saturday night. There was the weather that was just beckoning us to change residency, there was ample entertainment to occupy us till the event and there were the VIP tickets to the outdoor rave.

Then five hours later, there was the first hiccup to the night.

LB: “There are no VIP passes, but we can buy the tickets at RM38.”

Well, it didn’t really matter to me because there really isn’t any preferential VIP treatment at outdoor raves to begin with, and the event doesn’t even have alcohol available. Then, half an hour later.

LB: “I heard the event is full already, but let’s go and check it out anyway.”

Well, that only shows that the event truly is successful and worth our time in journey. We’ve travelled almost 7 hours for this, now surely we weren’t about to leave everything to doubt.

And since there wasn’t going to be alcohol in sight for the next 4 hours, we headed to a bar with a Pinoy live band – so you can be sure there was good vocals, and a clean stage floor. I got a jug of beer and Poca had a lethal cocktail that had her jumping around shortly after. I like to think of it as fuel for the party.

When we got there, we realized that the tickets for the event had all been sold out. And mind you, this was a 10 minute uphill hike from our hotel lobby to the event venue. It might be cold, but lactic acid builds up all the same.

The only way we were going to get in, was to buy black-market tickets that were going at RM150 each. This was at 12.30am and the event was ending at 3am. A torrential flood of deliberations waged on between us.

What if the tickets are fake? What if the event ends earlier than scheduled? Is it illegal to buy tickets off them? Why didn’t we come earlier? And what the fuck happened to our VIP passes!

It was 1.30 am and suddenly ticket prices were at RM175 each. Apparently in Genting, this is how they roll.

Me: “What fuck of a logic is this? Aren’t tickets supposed to be getting cheaper?!”

Then Poca realized that she had left her ID back at the hotel, so we both headed back to get it while LB, RotiPrata and Faith stayed on to assess the situation. When we got back, the guys had secured 5 tickets at RM166 each. In cost perspective, this was a full 70min massage and a bowl of noodles.

5 minutes into the event, LB receives an SMS from Jo.

“I have VIP passes now, are you guys still interested to come?”

You have to be shitting me. We went through all of that from having VIP passes, to not having, to being disallowed in to negotiating on fake tickets to buying tickets at exorbitant rates and now, only now, she has tickets?!

Is it just me or is timing always this cruel to everyone else? Or is this some test from a higher being that is designed to test my resolution in partying?

The great thing was that Paul Oakenfold was actually awesome – for all 15mins that we got to enjoy. Then they brought out some other gay fuck DJ that was probably as good if I was deaf and on a bottle of Prozac.

Everything else was as how we anticipated it to be; hordes of people in sunglasses to hide everything but their intentions and free smoking that was demarcated only by considerate public etiquette.

The event was decent in general. It wasn’t the goosebumps inducing toxin that Tiesto was capable of, or the hard bass concoction that most rave parties in Malaysia offered. Sure, there were the Marlboro girls that would have shamed our local equivalents, but any party without alcohol is like putting a eunuch in an orgy.

But of course, no else seemed to give a fuck about it because this is a rave and nobody needs alcohol when you have other substances with way cooler names than vodka or whiskey.

We left shortly before it ended and marked our presence by doing the Visa dance at the entrance in plain view of everyone who probably thought we were morons. Fuck them, with that much chemicals in them, they are not going to remember shit anyway.

Our cab driver back was actually pretty cool. He was brutally honest, spoke with a funny accent and was dreadfully sarcastic at times. He spent about half an hour explaining to us why he could not make a detour to the Tuas link checkpoint to check if Faith’s bag was still lying around waiting for her. Something about permits.

Then 4 hours later, that all faded into a Kodak moment of panic when he accidentally made a wrong turn into customs without an available u-turn. It was priceless. He was in such a panic, you would have thought that he was going to be thrown into prison, get ass raped by midgets in the courtyard and get fed with rat poison.

Cab: “Oh no.. oh no. I cannot come here. I cannot pass customs.”

Now surely he isn’t some federal convict, because just an hour ago, he said that he was a millionaire – as with what some cab drivers here like to tell me. And this is Malaysia, you can get out of a speeding offense faster than a Bangladeshi laying a brick. Making a wrong turn into customs is probably as much a crime as not wearing a bra to church.

In any case, we weren’t going to wait around for him to wrangle his way out of it. We got off, paid the guy, pissed a line of commuters for cutting the bus queue and finally made our way back to Singapore.

This all went pretty well by our standards. Well at least I made it back on Sunday.