Whatever happened to Mimaland ?
All these hoo-ha about the new theme park in Johor made me think about our very first theme park in Malaysia.
Mimaland was kind of a laid back hill theme park somewhere near Gombak 11th mile that was very popular in the late 70’s and 80’s.
It’s one theme park that everyone in KL wanted to go during breaks because of the close distance, fresh mountain air and the very affordable entrance fee.
The park had this really huge swimming pool with an equally giant slide. At the time, giant slides were only stories that we read about the parks in America. There were chalets and a small hotel, eateries, a lake with boating facilities, a pre-historic ‘jurassic’ park ( I took pictures with one of the dinosaurs..yeah,really lame) and a whole mountain top for a picnic.
There was this time when my parents took the whole family there for a picnic and we bumped into the biggest singing stars of Indonesia and Malaysia then, Broery Marantika and Sharifah Aini.
They were filming Hapuslah Air Mata Mu.
You’ll probably find me as an uncredited extra hanging out in the background in the movie. That’s the closest I ever got to stardom.
Heard that Mimaland now is an abandoned site with the owners still trying to figure out what to do with the place. I was tempted to drive up the other day to check out the place but I changed my mind after I remembered some of the spooky stories about a langsuyar (ghost of a woman who died after child birth) flying around near the foot of the hill.
I think I’ll wait until some condominiums are ready there before I go up again…
p.s. just stumbled onto this blog “Spirited Away In Mimaland” by The Thrifty Traveller. Very interesting !
The link is http://thriftytraveller.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/spirited-away-in-mimaland/
bad moon rising 