Groverwhelmed Sunday: The roadtrip that went wrong (Part 3 of 4)

After an eventful entry to?

• Malaysia: Part 1of the story
• and Genting Highlands: Part 2 of the story

The next two days were peaceful - we had limited movement and spent most of our time in the hotel and the casinos :)?

Our drive back from Genting to KL was also smooth with no surprises - surprisingly!?

We had planned to visit the iconic places:?

1) KL Towers: There is a revolving restaurant here and I wanted to give my friends a treat at this restaurant

2) Sky bridge of the Petronas Towers: Get the experience of standing in the petronas towers

The access to KL towers and the revolving?restaurant was simple: I had blocked a table well in advance - a week before the trip. The access to the Sky bridge of Petronas Tower however was tricky. Everyday at 6 AM the office would release a few tickets that were distributed early in the morning on a first come first serve basis.?

To ensure we got these, 3 friends stayed up the whole night - visited the office of Petronas Towers at 6 AM and got us 7 tickets.?

With the skybridge ticket sorted, the final day seemed to be in place. I had requested my friends to have a light breakfast as we were?going to have a lavish lunch at the revolving restaurant.?

I had it all figured out -?we would reach the KL towers at 12 PM: spend 30 mins enjoying the view. Have a slow paced and relaxing lunch between 12:30 and 1:30. Have some deserts, take pictures and at 2 PM we would head to Petronas, reach well in advance to enjoy our final stop at Malaysia: The skybridge of Petronas Towers.?

At 11:30 AM: we checked out of our?hotel, loaded our car with our luggage and were ready to roll but.. the car wouldn't start.?

We tried for a good 15 mins; the engine just wouldn't start - the expression in the car was oh-no not again. We had to leave for Singapore the same evening as I had to join work the next day. So fixing the issue was a priority instead of taking a cab and figuring out the issue later.?

It appeared to be a battery issue and fixing it wouldn't take a?lot of time we figured, so we looked for a mechanic?nearby; called him up - he took about 15 mins to reach the parking lot. He promised to be back in 30 mins with?the fixed battery.?

30 mins became a frustrating 2 hour wait. The good part was we had not starved ourselves (we had learnt from our day 1 experience) and the light breakfast was keeping us from getting major Hangry.

At 2 PM we headed for KL towers and the revolving restaurant. We no longer had 2 hours for our lavish lunch; we now just had 30 mins. When we reached the entry of the KL Tower; we were welcomed by a big board which said: Welcome to KL Towers, Sorry because of some mechanical issue the revolving restaurant will not be revolving today.?

I was like: Oh no, another bummer.?

My friends started discussing: we have lost so much time and now the restaurant too wasn't revolving - should we just ditch the lavish lunch plan?

If the restaurant isn't revolving no problem - we will move around the restaurant I told my friends. Let's just go to the restaurant: enjoy the view and have the fastest?buffet of our lives.?

To make this possible there was just 1 way to do it - don't spend too much time exploring what to have, just bring it all - everything. to the table. at once. And so I divided the group into 3 units:?

• 2 members to bring starters?
• 3 members to bring main course?
• 2 members to bring deserts?

I told?them: No refilling. We will have a communal eating session. In this manner, we will cover the spread and maybe, just maybe justify the price of the buffet (please don't judge, we had just started earning!)

The plan worked, we not only enjoyed the?view, the food was very good - we could have eaten more but we had to leave. At 2:45 PM we were back in our car. Our ticket for the Skybridge was for 3 PM and we were advised to come 10 mins early.?

We made a speed drive towards the Petronas Towers; it was a quick 7-8 mins ride. Sadly, in all this planning we forgot to estimate the time to find parking. We reached the towers and were super confused: where to park; figuring this was taking additional time.?

At 2:55 PM, once again - we decided to split into 2 groups: 2 of us would figure out the parking; the rest would sprint towards the office.?

At 3 PM, I and Ghosh figured out the parking; it was not time for us to sprint towards the office and when we reached we saw the sulky faces of our friends - they signalled that we lost our slot and the staff members were not letting us in.

I checked if they tried to?explain the reason for our few minutes delay. They had but it had led to a heated argument with one of the staff members. I looked at the staff members - they seemed super furious.?

Turns out our friends?approach was to question the staff on this specific rule, as at no place was it explicitly written that if we were late we will be denied entry. Sounded like a pretty bad negotiation strategy to me.

Ghosh, one of our friends, was very closely hearing all of this - he came to me and said this was a bad way to get an entry. He now wanted to give it a try. When he started to approach?the staff members, he was rudely asked to step away.?

He politely acknowledged the staff members' frustration and said we were sorry for our behaviour; he just wants to share something with them for 2 mins and would really appreciate it if you could hear him out.?

He asked them - have you been to India;

The staff members said: No?

He then asked if you ever make a trip to India - what will be your top destination

They said: Taj Mahal?

He then went ahead and asked them: imagine you are at the entrance of Taj Mahal. literally at the entrance, and you don't know when you would be visiting India again and right at the entrance you are asked to turn around and go back: I am sure this would make you feel very sad wouldn't it?

We are feeling the same way now: we are leaving KL this evening and we are not sure when are we going to come back to your beautiful country. We saved the best for the last - we understand that we are late; we actually never wanted to be late but sadly there was some car trouble and we are sorry for this. We would be really grateful if you could allow us to enter the Skybridge.?

There was a change in the staff member's body language - the anger faded away and he asked us to wait for a minute.

He went to his office and discussed our case with his supervisors . A few minutes later came back and said: we are letting you in. Please wait for 10 mins, you can visit the Skybridge at 3:30 PM.?

All of us were super impressed by Ghosh's negotiation skill - it was impressive and we were all excited once again.?

At 3:30 we took a lift to the Skybridge, expectant - ready to be blown away. BUT, as we reached the Skybridge we looked at each other and loudly expressed: Oh No, all this drama for this view? The view from KL Towers was much better, we should have just stayed there longer...