The taxi pulls up to a forest of fake trees with lights in them.  Omar, my taxi driver, pulls my suitcase out of the trunk and points to a series of sliding doors with lights and people everywhere.  “Over there” he says as he bids me goodbye and I tell him I’ll call him in a day to arrange my pick up.  There are signs everywhere and everything seems to be moving.  I can’t read any of the signs even though they are in English.  I can’t find a hotel check in desk.  I’m not even sure where the hotel is.  People keep bumping into me and I feel like I’m dragging the largest suitcase ever.  I know it’s not the largest suitcase ever because I use to own that and left it in Thailand.  Still….. I see 4 or 5 banks of electronic kiosks with 10 or more kiosks in each one.  I walk up and see that it’s for hotel check in.  So, I must be near the  hotel.  No matter what I do, it won’t let me check in.  I try to get help.  There are a bunch of people in uniforms standing around, but none of them will help me.  Maybe I’m invisible.  Maybe I’m not actually here.  It does feel kind of disjointed like a dream.  Finally a lady helps me.  She points to a sign that says all pre-bookings need to register with a guest services clerk first.  That sign wasn’t there a minute ago and what’s the point of point of self check in if you can’t do it yourself?  She asks how many people – just me.  Then a little later she asks if I need a second key.  For who?  It’s still just me.  If I want a second key, I will need to give her a second passport.  It’s still just me.  What is going on?  “Any special requests?  Oh, too late, here’s your key”.  Huh?  I find tower 1 and go up to my floor.  I step off the elevator and into a bad dream.  Have you ever been so sick with a bad fever or woken up from too much anesthesia where your dreams are drug induced, creepy alternate realities where nothing is as it should be?  I found the portal to this alternate reality.  It’s at the First World Resort Hotel in Genting Highlands.  In the air was soft electronic ambient music.  There’s no real tune or beat, just horrible wandering sound that suggests that time no longer exists, you are the last human being on the planet and you no longer have arms or legs.  The only windows are covered in purple film casting a creepy light everywhere.  The striped carpet is covered in water stains as if the entire hotel was flooded last week.  I could almost feel the water on my feet as I walked down the hall wondering what could have caused that much water damage.  The halls go on forever and the music makes me feel like I’m in slow motion.  Well, I no longer have arms or legs so maybe that’s why I’m moving in slow motion.  Or maybe the halls are growing longer as I walk down them.  Or maybe I’m actually underwater.  Three years later I arrive at my room.  It has twin beds, not a double and the tv doesn’t work.  There’s no wifi.  I might have walked backward through time to before there was wifi.  That’s possible.

I make the three-year journey back to the hotel lobby or rain forest or whatever it is.  They told me that it doesn’t matter what I booked ahead of time, the rooms are all first come first serve.  I can come back later and see if a room with a queen bed became available, but there’s no wifi in tower one and for some reason unknown to me, there’s no chance in hell I will get a room in tower 2 or 3.  There’s 4 hotels, 4 or 5 casinos, an indoor theme park, shops, restaurants and an arcade all interconnected so let’s go explore and hopefully find some food on the way.  My experience so far had left me very disoriented and I notice that there are signs and some of the words are in English, but I can’t read them.  All I see is trees with lights in them.  I find an elevator and go up.  When I exit I am “outdoors” in a market.  A whale floats by above me.  It reminds me of main street Disney with the overdone perfect shops, fake bakery smells, lights everywhere and people everywhere.  This is the slightly lower budget Asian casino version mimicking an open air market.  A reindeer sled with two kids in it flies by.  The statue of liberty is riding a Harley.  I see the casino entrance, but don’t go in.  That might be too much.  There are restaurants on the other side of the river, but I can’t get to them.  Guess that’s not where I want to eat tonight.  I find a movie theatre, a haunted house, tons of stores and Ripley’s believe it or not.  It’s 4 or 5 stories of this fake outdoors.  An escalator goes up, but there’s no escalator down.  There are dead ends and a lot of “how do I get over there?”.  I find an escalator that goes to the next hotel/casino.  Maybe they will have food I want.  It turns out to be 6 or 7 escalators some of them so steep that I had to hold onto the railing because I felt like I would fall over.  It drops me off at an arcade.  FUCK.  It’s so loud, lights everywhere, and so many small humans.  I have now lost all ability to function.  I stood there like a deer in the headlights.  I don’t even remember walking, but then I was at the other side of the arcade and looking at an Italian restaurant.  I couldn’t read the menu, but by looking at the place, I figured I couldn’t afford it anyway.  More walking, more dead ends, more casinos, more hotel, more Chinese people, more food consisting of something and rice.  So hungry.  So don’t want rice.  And about 2 minutes before total melt down – burger and a ginger beer.  Yay!  Not sure how I found it, but I felt human again after I ate it.  I think going from rural Thailand to this in one day, I might have overestimated my adaptation skills.  I know people that get easily overwhelmed by too much stimulus.  I think this might be how they feel.  But, knowing that it’s just over stimulus, I never panicked or actually freaked out.  I kind of enjoyed most of it even though it was frustrating when I got hungry.

After dinner, foot massage.  Here that involves a steam tub for your feet and legs.  At first it was nice, then it tried to peel my skin off.  Not a fan.  Then back through the arcade.  Arcades are just casinos for kids, practice for later.  I went into one of the casinos.  I didn’t understand any of the table games and I don’t care for slot machines.  I found some game rules and descriptions and took them to one of the river side bars I couldn’t get to before.  I had a drink and read about the games.  The drink did me in so I will play games tomorrow.  I was able to get my room changed to one with a queen sized bed.  Still no wifi.  I think they named the hotel wrong.  Instead of First World Resort, I think it should be called Better than Third World Resort.  My new room is still in the time warp tower 1 so I still had to swim with no arms and legs to it.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore