Monday 23 May 2011

My Scary Story: Staying at the Haunted Ria Apartment's Amber Court in Genting Highlands, Malaysia!!

N/B: this is an updated version, original is still floating around the internet but my writing has improved since 2011 so I thought I would tidy it up a bit :) I am happy to let you copy the story, repost etc but please give original link thank you!

I thought I would give you guys a little scary story :)

Back in 2007 I went on my first trip to Malaysia with my husband (bf at the time) and stayed for over 2 months. This was the Summer before I started Uni, and I really wanted to get some sun before going back to the UK. We saw a lot, but one weekend we were kind of stuck for ideas and he suggested that we go to this place called Genting Highlands. My husband had been up there as a kid and he thought it might be something fun to do. Basically it is a resort that is built in the mountains about an hour's drive from the capital. It has some rides and attractions, as well as a couple of casinos, so it is quite popular as a mini vacation. 

We invited 2 of our friends and we started our journey at 6am and got the coach up there. On the way up I got a little sick, apparently due to the altitude change, so I was not in a good mood from the start. It was also quite cold, I think it was around 11C, and I was not prepared for that!
That multicolored building is the First World Hotel, which has the most rooms in the world!
   
So we had not booked a hotel place, and there was nothing available that we could afford (we were 19 yr old students!), so we asked around and managed to find this minivan driver who worked for a hotel about 15 minutes drive away from the main park, and it had rooms available! It was 200 ringgit so I was happy with that and so the 4 of us got into his minivan and away we drove!

we stayed at 9: ria apartments
As we got further and further away from the main convention centre, we started passing all kinds of creepy things, like completely abandoned buildings and building projects that had been left unfinished. The van was totally quiet and we had to stop a couple of times to wait for the fog to clear (it was so thick!) I took a few videos and photos because I thought they were so creepy looking. I can't really describe what that road up there was like, maybe post-zombie apocalypse meets the shining? 

So we finally pull up to our hotel and i was not a happy bunny.








Saying this place was creepy is the understatement of the century!!! I knew from the moment I looked at it that there was something very wrong about it all. My emotions are easily affected by my surroundings, and this place was sending my anxiety off the charts! So we got out of the minivan and the driver sped off quickly. Already I was telling my husband that I wanted to find another place but he said that it was only for one night and that we would be ok!

There were a couple of people at reception and that was pretty much it, the place was deserted, and I honestly mean that. I think we must have been one of the only people in that place. We get our key and make our way past one shop where i spy some maggi noodles, that was literally the best thing about the place haha! We got into this old elevator and got to the 14th floor and that's where the real fun began. Inside the apartment there was a kitchen and living room, and then 2 separate bedrooms with their own en-suites. You could not see anything out of the window as it was incredibly misty. It was like being inside a cloud. And the worst bit was that the whole building groaned and the wind made the worst kind of noise against the windows, really horrible howling!

I wanted to take a shower but the water was freezing and stopped after a while, and the room felt damp, it just smelt of oldness. I was really moody at this point and hungry so my hubby and his friend decided to go downstairs and get my maggi. I was left with the girlfriend and we were in the living room just hanging out and then suddenly she said she was tired and feeling ill so she went to lie down in her bedroom. I went into my room to put some makeup on and I left my bedroom door wide open. I was doing my makeup in the mirror and I heard stuff being moved around in the kitchen. I was happy because the guys were back with my food! I also felt like someone was watching me from the living room, and I assumed it was my husband.

I went out and they weren't in the main room so I thought they had maybe gone into the other bedroom but I looked inside and my friend looked up from her bed looking puzzled. I asked her where the guys were and she looked a bit confused and told me to check her bathroom. I thought it was a bit weird that they were hanging out in the bathroom but when I went to check, nobody was there. I then thought they must have gone out again so I went and waited in the living room. I was pretty bored and was just sitting all alone just watching the fog roll by the windows (we were quite high up). I then looked down at my fingernails and I remember that they had turned blue!

Then this the freaky part, I am diagnosed with vertigo and I have an irrational fear of heights. I will literally start crying if I feel unsafe and I even freak out when walking around a shopping mall. But I looked at the window and for some reason I wanted to look out. I slowly walked over and opened the window, and felt the cold air and mist. I leant right over as the window was waist high, and looked down and it looked like a very long drop, and I kept on thinking how easily I could fall out...and suddenly I felt like something was glaring at me from the corner of my eye, something seriously evil and it felt like a woman, and I snapped out of it and shut the window fast and spun round.



At that exact moment the guys came back with some food and they were laughing and joking. I asked my husband if he had gone out twice and he said no, so I pushed all that creepiness to one side, thinking I was probably still a bit sick. We left the hotel and went to the main park, and returned later that night around 11pm. With all that crazy fog I'm really surprised we did not get lost in those highlands. That night was uneventful, although I did wake up 3-4 times in the night but I quickly buried myself under the covers!

I only told my hubby my story once we were back in KL and he looked very concerned. He knows how crazy my fear of heights is and so he seemed to think that I had been drawn to the window?! I have no reason to make it up and I had no idea that the place was apparently haunted until I researched a bit online.

And to end this lovely story, all the photos I took of this specific hotel have gone. All the other pictures I took of this area are still in my computer, including the rides etc but I can't find the hotel ones anywhere, almost like they were wiped from the camera..freaky eh? :p


Thursday 5 May 2011

i love moroccan style!

i absolutely adore moroccan interior design. it is my dream to one day have my own house that i can decorate in the style of a moroccan villa. i have never actually been there but just from books and maybe some moroccan restaurants, i have fallen in love with the style. i love how it is rustic yet still inviting and comforting, with lots of colour and fabrics that compliment each other. sometimes i wish i was born back in the 1600s when there were harems and stuff, where all women did was lay around on cushions and had a spa day everyday (lol i know there are some of us still out there that do this!) ill keep on dreaming eh? :P