Hot in the City

If you think you would like to go to watch the F1 race at Sepang, Malaysia one of these days, do not read on.

I joined a tour that set off at 6am at Orchard Road. The bus was full of avid F1 fans, mostly non-Singapore males. Strange. The bus trip took about 5.5 hours, with a lunch break at Yong Ping. The food was ok but the bathroom was nasty. It was wet and there was no paper! Can you believe that?

The buses had to stop a distance away from the circuit and the path to the circuit was narrow and it had space barely for 1 person to walk on. Don't the Malaysians plan that they'd be people walking from the buses to the circuit? Grr...

The way the circuit was designed in such a way that I had to take a shuttle bus to get to my seat. Therefore, I couldn't have access to all the shops and the mall area at the circuit. Duh! That's bad design and bad logistics.

But I thought it was alright since I've assumed that there would be stores near where I was sitting. No! Nada! Zippo! There was only 1 pathetic store at their so-called F1 village. The store was selling a magnet for 30RM. Can you believe that price? It's a rip-off!

The entrace to the seating area was also in such bad shape. The staircases leading to the toilets were full of weeds. The toilets were so wet and paperless. I was furious because the tickets cost a lot of money and yet the amenities were in such bad condition.

After the race, there was, as expected, a mad rush for the shuttle buses. I really wonder whether the managment chose not to anticipate the huge crowd or they were really clueless about crowd managment. It was impossible to get onto the shuttle bus so I ended up walking back to my bus, which took nearly an hour of walking in the scorching sun.

I swore never to go back to Sepang again unless it's a free trip. The managment of the circuit didn't do a good job but the race was really exciting. That saved the day.