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Singapore to KL in 8 Hours Saturday, December 06, 2003 | Travel Singapore to KL in 8 HoursA Travel Diary by Lee Ting Zien Murphy's Law I'm on a train ride back to my hometown in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was quite an unplanned trip so it was all planned in less than a day. Murphy's law did get in its way but I finally made it back anyhow. This is my first chance of documenting an eight hour ride back to my hometown so I thought I could make it a useful ride with four hours of battery life on my Apple iBook. It was a pity I had forgotten my digital camera. Murphy's Law again, maybe? No Ticket, No Train The moment I got home, I hastily packed my haversack with my toothbrush, my toothpaste, a battery operated shaver, a bottle of water, my laptop, an optical mouse, my MP3 player and my passport. I left my house to catch a MRT to meet my girlfriend at Tanjong Pagar station where we hired a taxi to get to the Malaysian KTM train station. We arrived at the Tanjong Pagar KTM station at about 8:30pm. I joined the queue at the ticketing counter hoping that there would be tickets for tonight's train. When my turn came, luck was on my side and I and bought myself a second-class seat ticket for the ten o'clock train at SGD $30. Killing Time Since we were too early for the train, we decided to settle down at a "restaurant" (which was basically a run-down coffee shop) and had some teh (tea) and roti prata. I also bought two magazines from a store so I could keep myself occupied while I'm on the train. After our meal, we proceeded to the departure area. There was already a queue forming so we joined the queue before it got too long. Departure The gates opened at 9:30 pm. I got through the immigration and baggage check at the train station without a hiccup and headed for my cabin and seat, K3, 13A. It was a normal diesel-train cabin with sensor-automated doors at the ends and cushion seats in shades of blue and grey. Seats in the train were arranged in a way that half of them faced forward while the other half faced backward. I was lucky to have the seat at the end of the cabin which was definitely worth the extra leg room for the amount I paid. Anyway, I propped my bag against the wall on the side and got started with the magazines I bought while my cabin slowly filled up with less than a handful of people. Ticket, Please? By 10:10 pm, the train started moving off, passing many familiar landmarks in Singapore. While I was enjoying the night view outside, a ticket attendant took me by surprise because I almost threw my ticket away! Luckily I shoved it into my bag and had to dig quite a while for it. It was pretty embarrassing. Night Scenery Once my girlfriend reached home, she rang me and I described what I saw along the way -- thick vegetation around the train tracks with "lalang" as tall -- or even taller -- than I am. I explained to her that these vegetation was poorly maintained because the land around the train tracks belonged to Malaysia. Singapore Immigration Soon, the train pulled over at Woodlands Checkpoint. We got off the train with our passports and valuable items and headed for the Singapore Immigration. Once we were past, passengers gathered at a waiting area where it got crowded quickly with 300-400 passengers waiting eagerly to board the train. The doors at the waiting area opened and I was soon back at my seat chatting away on my mobile. Goodbye Singapore, Hello Malaysia! Within ten minutes from boarding, the train moved off. I had already ended my conversation with my girlfriend as the reception got really bad. I got my iBook started at this diary. It was not long before it arrived at the Johor Bahru KTM train station. Many people boarded the train and the seats in my cabin was almost 50% filled. Hello, Do I Sit Beside You? While I was typing away, a man in his late forties dressed in blue jacket, grey checked shirt, black tie with white polka-dots, black pants and black leather shoes came up to me. Wearing a smile on his face, he showed me his ticket and made a polite gesture to ask if he got the correct seat. I nodded in response to his gesture. He then placed his grey Garfield bag on a fold-out desk in front of us and settled down on the seat beside me. Lights Out At 11:30 pm, the train got moving again. The man siting on my left is now asleep to the beat of the music from his earphones that were barely audible from the outside. The view of the thick unmaintained vegetation from my window seat is barely visible now as there weren't much lights in the secluded areas of Johor Bahru, a state which extends over 170 kilometers north of Peninsular Malaysia. I thought to myself: "It's a pity I couldn't enjoy the beautiful greenery in Malaysia at this time of the day". Anyway, I started getting tired and decided to rest my eyes for a while. Fast Rail Just barely ten minutes later, I opened my eyes and looked out of the window on my right only to realize that I was actually traveling in excess of 70 kilometers per hour on a railway parallel to the start of the pan-malaysian expressway. I saw cars zipping down the road, petrol stations and low-rise flatted shop-houses -- a common sight in more developed areas of Malaysia. By this time, the ticket attendant was back again to check the tickets of those who just boarded from Johor Bahru. Ghost Station It's almost 12 midnight and the train has stopped dead in its tracks in the middle of Johor. I thought it was for the ticket attendant to shuffle people who got in wrong cabins around but I was wrong. It was a small train station that had no signboards so I could not identify what the name of the area was. It took about ten minutes before the train started to move off again. By now it's already 5 minutes past midnight. Malay "atap" houses with zinc roofs were in sight from my window, although hardly visible to the naked eye at night from a moving train. The air-con started getting a little cold and cigarette smoke from smokers at smoking areas started to seep through the gap in the doors. The smoke was getting me sleepy so I drank a mouthful of water and went to "sleep". Intermittent Sleep At 50 minutes past midnight, the train stopped over at Pejabat, a small town in Johor. It was apparent by this time that the ticket attendant would make his rounds at every stop. 10 minutes later, the journey continued, I went back to sleep. We stopped by Paloh at 1:22 am. I was getting really sleepy by then and the train stops were interrupting my sleep. Paloh was a very run-down station that resembled old cowboy towns you see on HBO. There were no passengers so the train moved off in less than a minute. The ticket attendant never came over. Past Johor Bahru I had two good hours of rest before we arrived in Meleka at 3:40 am. I was finally out of Johor. Melaka spotted a cleaner train station and low-rise flatted shop-houses in the vicinity. Still, two hours' of sleep weren't enough. I procrastinated and went back to sleep. More Space? Not Really. At Seremban, the malay couple seated at the other window to my left disembarked. The guy beside me moved over to their seat. I finally had more space to myself. It was already 5:00 am. Shortly after, I went to the toilet and realized that the main cabin doors leading to the outside were open, meaning you could actually jump out of or on to the moving train. The toilet was very small, probably a 1.5 meter by 1.5 meter cubicle with hardly any space to move about. The leg-operated flushing system was not working and I had to use shower hose provided. I couldn't help but notice that toilet waste went right to the ground under train as I could see the gravel on the train tracks from the hole in the toilet bowl! Fast, Fast Rail I got back to my seat and stayed awake for quite a while. By this time, the train was moving in speeds in excess of 90km/h. I was pretty dangerous. At one point of time, the cabin even shaking quite badly when another train traveling in opposite direction went past us. Door Failure To be continued... posted by detach at 10:29:20 PM | permanent link
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