Journey to Genting Highland

For the first time I drove my family (mother, 2 sisters, and 2 nieces) to Genting Highland for a holiday on Friday, 3rd September 2010. The road leading up to Genting Highland is a winding road with a few bumps, but Isis still managed to pull it off quite reasonably. On the way up there, I spotted another Isis driving up to Genting as well, but the driver is able to drive it up the hill faster than mine.

We reached our apartment around 6:30pm, and the mist started to become thicker, making the visibility very low. While driving out to find a place to eat dinner, mist is so thick that I can't even see the surrounding, but to rely on the road line, the lights, and have to drive very carefully at lower gear. The fog lamps of my Isis are burnt, and I haven't change them yet, so I have to rely on the main headlamps.

Coming back down from Genting is a nightmare to me because of the number of bumps that they put on the road. In my opinion, based on my experience driving on hilly roads back in Tawau, those bumps can be hazardous to the car and could prove dangerous because the constant braking could really wear out the brake even faster. Plus, it could damage the car suspension as well. I have no idea why they want to set it up in such a manner. Yes, driving down hill can be dangerous and measurement has to be done to prevent/reduce it, but putting up the road bumps on a down hill road, and the kind of bump that could damage the car suspension? I don't really think that's a good thorough planning.

The key to driving down hill is to engage into lower gear, which would allow the car to go down the hill slower, and could reduce the amount of force for the braking. The problem I suspect is probably people just doesn't know how to engage into lower gear while going down hill, esp. in an automatic transmission car. I normally would brake the car fully during down hill drive until it is slow enough to engage into lower gear, and then release it. It is the same for both manual and automatic transmission.

Lastly, despite all the setback that I faced during the Genting trip, Isis has performed well. I must admit that for the kind of road in Genting, it is a very disadvantage for my Isis because although it has no problem to go through bump, but when there are more people in the car, it added up to the weight and as a result of that it is more likely to hit the bottom of the car, which has been made so low due to the body kit and its longer body. As a result of that, in the future should this kind of situation arise again, I hope I could have a better car that could do it for me, i.e. the Land Cruiser. For normal city road driving, Isis will still do the job.