To Kota Bahru

On the Monday we took the Jungle Train to Kota Bahru in North East Malaysia. Said to be one of the great train rides in the World, the train leaves from the main station in Singapore, crosses into Malaysia at Johore Bahru and then winds its way up to the furthest reaches of Malaysia on the Easy Coast. This meant and early start (0600) although nothing moved until 0630. By a quirk of history the station is actually in Malaysia, so you clear customs at the station.

The carriage was air conditioned and was quite cold. We had to get off the train at the border and board it again to signify we had left Singapore we think. Then we made continued our 15 hour journey with many stops en route. We knew that there was no provision to eat on board so we had some snacks with us although two fine gentlemen arrived with boxes of food for sale. They had no marketing skills at all and didn't seem to do very well.

A typical Malaysian station. This part of Malaysia is predominantly Muslim

All went well and we may have even been close to being on time until we had an air conditioning failure. An attempt was made to fix it by taking on lots of water but to no avail and eventually they took our first class carriage off and we moved into second class, which looked as good as the one we left behind on a siding. It was all very leisurely.

A Malaysian high street

Eventually we arrived at the station closest to Kota Bahru and haggled with a taxi driver to complete the day's journey. It was raining.

A view from the train. One of the bigger rivers that we crossed