Saturday, March 22, 2008

Surfing superstars

On the world's largest suspension bridge...

Clare and I had exhausted the natural tourism of KL, so we decided to go for somewhere a little more manufactured - Sunway Lagoon, reportedly the world's largest water park. It may have also been the world's largest collection of seedy Indian men leering at Clare and other women in their swimming costumes...

To get to Sunway, you need to catch a 25min cab out of town to this gigantuous shopping mall in the middle of nowhere.

Seriously, this place was massive. If there was ever a hell for a man being dragged by his girlfriend around the shops, this would be it. It's like a spiraled maze of fiery commercial torment.

Inside the shopping estate is the other bastion of devilish commerce and trade - Sunway Lagoon Theme park.

The main attraction of Sunway Lagoon for Clare and I was their man-made surf wave.

I was all limbered up and excited that morning, knowing that many of the sub-continental tourists we were to share the park with could barely swim, let alone surf. It was going to be a great day - we had a good chance of getting a nice long, unique surfing experience.

Oh, but one problem, the wave pool was closed to the public.

Shut the gates, put your cossies away, don't bother buying the wax...bloody closed....
Cerrado...被关闭...Chiuso...закрытый...閉じられます...

I was nonetheless pretty disappointed.

Clare had heard that there was a surfing demonstration on at noon, so we thought we'd go for a bit of a look anyway.

When we got there, we saw four lifeguards, of varying abilities on the board surfing for a gaggle of TV cameras, positioned across various parts of the lagoon.

TV3 Malaysia had set up shop for a live outside broadcast to the nation - similar to a 'Great Outdoors' style of broadcast.

Clare and I cheekily asked if we could have a surf, not thinking they'd say yes...until the producer gave the OK!!!! Yeah!
So we ended up getting the surf AND being the featured surfers on a live Malaysian national lifestyle program. Better give Quiksilver a call to arrange some sponsorship...

To be honest, that was probably the highlight of the day...the rest of the park was pretty lame, but there were many kids and women in their full hijab seeming to have fun on the slides.

This is a picture of the lagoon from the suspension bridge...note the massive hotels and shopping centre in the background.

Clare flying high on a hydraulic raptor ride.

2 comments:

Mum said...

Did you actually walk on that thing? I get sweaty palms even thinking of it. Or is it wider and firmer than it looks?

Belly said...

It was as rickety as an old man's knees. I did NOT feel safe...I'm glad it wasn't too windy! A good view though.