Day 5: Sunway Lagoon

Tiger Tom

Wow, what a day.  We are all exhausted and sun-weary but happy.  Today we went to Sunway Lagoon.  I had read about it in LP, and on a blog for families visiting Malaysia and it sounded right down Tom's street, he loved the water park we went to in Tenerife which Matt never got to, so I thought it would be a fun family day out.  The information on the website was very scarce, we we weren't really that sure what to expect.  I thought there would be a few water rides, a dry ride or two and a beach.  Oh was I wrong, very very wrong!

Cheeky monkeys

Just as well, we didn't balk at the price of entry - it was £70 for the 3 of us (with a big discount voucher I found on-line), which is quite an investment for a day out, but I figured it was worth a go for some fun.  In the end we came out thinking what great value the ticket was.

So, it was a beach, a lagoon, a wave pool, lots of water rides: lumpy bumpy rides, twisty rides, up and down rides, super fast rides, dark rides, boat rides and more.  That was just the watery bit.  There was also a huge suspension bridge, a huge zip wire and bungee (if you wanted to pay extra), a full on zoo including lions, tigers, panthers etc (but no orang-utans!), an amusement park with roller coaster, pirate boat swing and Ghostbusters/zombie experience and more.  We couldn't quite believe what we found, and the day 10-6 went very very quickly.

On the water slides

We did spend the most of last night trying to work out how to get there - it is quite a distance away.  The website didn't give us much information, and then when typing it into the KL travel destination website, the info it gave us wasn't that helpful (no timetables etc).  We decided that the same station and bus line kept coming up, so we would try that way, but when we got to the bus stop we were told that the bus we needed didn't exist anymore!  Oh joy!  We went back to the station and found a very helpful lady who told us to get back on the train, to much further down the line and then there is a dedicated bus to take us to the Lagoon.  She was right, the journey couldn't have been any easier.  Why the Lagoon or the KL travel website don't tell you about it is beyond me!

Anyhow, we arrived and followed the signs and headed down, down, down into the lagoon (built in an old mine).  We got changed and headed straight to the beach for a dip in the lagoon, very nice it was too.  Then off to the water rides.  Now one thing about the water rides, is that a lot of them take place on a blow up boat for 2.  This was also the case in Tenerife, not a problem for us as there were only two of us anyway, but the staff allowed people to go on by themselves, not the case here and as we already know you must obey the rules in Malaysia, or you get whistled at (there were a lot of whistles today - but no truncheons that I could see).  This meant that it was either me and Tom or Matt and Tom on the ride, with who was left over waiting.  Not ideal, but it didn't ruin the day by any means.

LONG suspension bridge

I must say I did feel very female and very exposed today.  There were huge bunches of Indian men hanging around (not sure where their partners were?) and of course, with a huge Muslim population, most of the women who were there were completely wrapped up!  In fact, we have never seen such an array of swimming costumes ever.  They went from the full floppy Muslim dress with headscarf in swimming suit material, to just doing it all fully dressed in your normal everyday clothes, to skimpy bikinis (white people only) and everything and I mean everything in-between.  I was very much the minority, being white and in a swimsuit, however, I did have a dress to cover up between rides, and to be honest I didn't notice anyone leering at me at all.  One thing we have noticed here is that everyone seems to be friendly and get on with each other despite some obvious differences.  I'm sure there must be tensions from time to time, but nothing we have seen.  In fact when I went on a very very fast ride where you are stood up in a see through capsule and at some point the floor gives way and you fall feet first down a chute before landing on your back and finishing the ride, the biggest surge of adrenaline I have experienced in a long long time (Matt and Tom decided against doing it!), two Arab blokes before me actually checked on me to make sure I was OK at the end of the ride.  We had been making faces at each other because a big bunch of Indian men caused delays before us - by having huge debates about who would go first etc etc.

Weeeeeeeeee!

After spending some time at the first splash park, we headed to another, and found a full on zoo between the tow.  None of the animals were doing anything, but then I'm not that surprised considering it was very very hot.  We saw sun bears, white lions, white tiger, black panther, lots of snakes, rabbits, a cassowary (which I got very excited about!), giant tortoises, ponies, more rabbits, meerkats and a lot more.  In fact we spent way more time there than we expected.  So much so that we were hungry so went to find something for lunch.  We ended up with okonomiyaki chicken with rice and pop, which was enough to put us on and then we explored the other splash park which was ace, with loads more rides, including the fast one I described, 4 twisty boat rides, a backwards and forwards boat slide that was ace and didn't have much of a queue so we did it twice, and a huge kids area themed around Sponge Bob Square Pants, which at first looked quite mild, but with some exploring was actually fabulous, as good for adults as for kids.  Think we spent the best part of an hour there.  They had a huge big bucket of water that filled up and then splashed upon us every 5 minutes or so which was great fun as well as loads of twisty rides.  A fab place.

Next stop was a walk along a huge long suspension bridge to an amusement park, a ride on a big wheel, Matt had a ride on a roller coaster (Tom couldn't go as he wasn't tall enough) and then we queued up for a Ghostbusters experience.  It was billed as being quite scary and they weren't wrong.  There were live actors in the experience jumping out at you as you went along.  It was very dark so you couldn't see anything, lots of big noises going off, scary movies around us etc etc.  I was worried that it was too much for Tom, but he kept at it got through without any hysterics, but I think he was puzzled as to why we took him there.  Another boy about the same age as him, cried instantly and had to leave, so well done Tom!

By now it was heading for 5pm, so we went back to the first splash area and had a go on our favourite rides,  and then Tom requested some time in the wave pool, where he spent most of his time under water.

By 5.30 we were starving and tired.  It was time to go, so we got changed into our dry clothes and headed out in search of tea, which we found at Morganfield's, a western style restaurant (so not one we would naturally search out, but it was the only one we could find that was open and not selling mega spicy food!).  The food was actually really good, Matt had some pork ribs, I had a massive piece of chicken that I couldn't finish and Tom had meatballs.  All went down very well.

We then got the bus and train back home, where Tom went straight to bed (he didn't get to sleep until around midnight last night!) and we packed ready for our flight to Sandakan tomorrow morning.  Can't wait for bed, am hoping we can get to sleep before 2am tonight - please...