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Singapore Tours » Travel to Romance of Rail
THE ROMANCE OF RAIL TRAVEL
SINGAPORE – THAILAND- MALAYSIA
Try the real thing and embark on a rail journey up into the clouds, past paddy fields and rain forests traversing Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.
You could ride the Orient Express 1,900 km from Singapore to Bangkok: be waited on, hand and foot, for 41 hours as the paddy fields, rubber plantations and rain forests glide past your window. Or, you could try the real thing and chop a couple of zeroes off the cost. Make the same journey on KTM (Malayan Railways) and the State Railway of Thailand.
From Bangkok comfortable sleeper trains continue north to Chiang Mai; north-east to Nong Khai, just across the Mekong from Vientiane, the Laos capital; or eastwards across Isaan, the heart of rural Thailand, towards Cambodia. (No further, unfortunately, for the time being.)
Standards range all the way from third-class mail trains, stopping at all stations, to air-conditioned second class sleeper cars and first class twin cabins on the overnight express services. Whatever your choice, fares remain reasonable and bookmgs are not difficult.
These countries are well-endowed with highways. For those without cars, turbo-charged express buses roar through the night. So why is train travel still so popular? Safety and comfort are fairly compelling reasons. Coach journeys are cramped and fraught with the risk of head-on collisions. For foreign visitors there is another good reason: seeing the countryside unmarred by roadside garages, repair shops, highway junctions and all the other detritus of highways the world over.
The city stations are attractions in themselves. Built during the heyday of the Federated Malay States, Singapore’s Keppel Road station is decorated with art deco murals which depict toiling coolies, farmers planting rice and tappers collecting rubber—paeans to the virtues of trade, commerce, industry and agriculture. Today Keppel Road, just beyond Chinatown, falls off the edge of most city maps.
Traveling north, customs and immigration formalities must be completed before leaving Singapore, since northbound trains quickly cross the island nation and rattle across the causeway into Johore Bahru, Malaysia; Kuala Lumpur lies several hours ahead.
Kuala Lumpur station was created in 1911 by colonial architects indulging in a fantasy of cupolas, spires, minarets and arches. Their playful creativity failed to impress the London engineers whose rigid design standards mandated the structural strength to withstand heavy winter snowfalls!
Beyond Ipoh, the sleepy siding at Tapah Road is the starting point for a journey up into the clouds, to the old-established hill station at Cameron Highlands. In Tapah, an otherwise unremarkable planter’s town, the descendants of Tamil rubber tappers serve up delicious banana-leaf curries.
Breakmg the northward journey at Butterworth, passengers on the Eastern and Oriental are treated to a ferry excursion to Georgetown on the island of Penang, something you can do with equal facility, since ferries leave constantly from the terminus adjoining the station. As train connections are not always smooth at the Thai border, it is wise to build Butterworth into your itinerary.
Malaysia, for its part, boasts the Jungle Railway, a rattletrap line running through the rain forests of the interior to the northeastern coastal state of Kelantan, a land of Malay fishing villages under the swaying palms. Yes, it must be pleasant.
Fact File
Accommodation standards and bookmg systems on KTM (Malaysian Railways) and the State Railways of Thailand. Reservations can be made up to 90 days ahead in Bangkok at Hualampong’s advance bookmg office, at Don Muang station and in other major Thai cities. Bookmg offices are generally open 8.30-6 pm, 8.30-12 noon on weekends and public holidays. Private agencies also make bookmgs for an additional fee.
Thailand Explorer passes are sold outside Thailand to international student identity card-holders under 26 and their families. Allowing unlimited second class travel (sleepers and AC extra), the pass costs US$ 33 (Rs 1,287) for seven days, $40 (Rs 1,560) for 14 days and $48 (Rs 1,872) for 21 days.
Fares on KTM are payable in local currency in Singapore or in Malaysia, regardless of the exchange rate differential. The KTM rail pass valid for 30 days’ first class travel costs US$ 55 (Rs 2,145) and for under 30s, the Explorer Pass Malaysia, valid for seven days’ economy travel costs US$ 32 (Rs 1,248). Please reconfirm fares while makmg bookmgs. Train information is available in Kuala Lumpur Malaysian train timetables are available on the Internet
SINGAPORE – THAILAND- MALAYSIA
Try the real thing and embark on a rail journey up into the clouds, past paddy fields and rain forests traversing Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.
You could ride the Orient Express 1,900 km from Singapore to Bangkok: be waited on, hand and foot, for 41 hours as the paddy fields, rubber plantations and rain forests glide past your window. Or, you could try the real thing and chop a couple of zeroes off the cost. Make the same journey on KTM (Malayan Railways) and the State Railway of Thailand.
From Bangkok comfortable sleeper trains continue north to Chiang Mai; north-east to Nong Khai, just across the Mekong from Vientiane, the Laos capital; or eastwards across Isaan, the heart of rural Thailand, towards Cambodia. (No further, unfortunately, for the time being.)
Standards range all the way from third-class mail trains, stopping at all stations, to air-conditioned second class sleeper cars and first class twin cabins on the overnight express services. Whatever your choice, fares remain reasonable and bookmgs are not difficult.
These countries are well-endowed with highways. For those without cars, turbo-charged express buses roar through the night. So why is train travel still so popular? Safety and comfort are fairly compelling reasons. Coach journeys are cramped and fraught with the risk of head-on collisions. For foreign visitors there is another good reason: seeing the countryside unmarred by roadside garages, repair shops, highway junctions and all the other detritus of highways the world over.
The city stations are attractions in themselves. Built during the heyday of the Federated Malay States, Singapore’s Keppel Road station is decorated with art deco murals which depict toiling coolies, farmers planting rice and tappers collecting rubber—paeans to the virtues of trade, commerce, industry and agriculture. Today Keppel Road, just beyond Chinatown, falls off the edge of most city maps.
Traveling north, customs and immigration formalities must be completed before leaving Singapore, since northbound trains quickly cross the island nation and rattle across the causeway into Johore Bahru, Malaysia; Kuala Lumpur lies several hours ahead.
Kuala Lumpur station was created in 1911 by colonial architects indulging in a fantasy of cupolas, spires, minarets and arches. Their playful creativity failed to impress the London engineers whose rigid design standards mandated the structural strength to withstand heavy winter snowfalls!
Beyond Ipoh, the sleepy siding at Tapah Road is the starting point for a journey up into the clouds, to the old-established hill station at Cameron Highlands. In Tapah, an otherwise unremarkable planter’s town, the descendants of Tamil rubber tappers serve up delicious banana-leaf curries.
Breakmg the northward journey at Butterworth, passengers on the Eastern and Oriental are treated to a ferry excursion to Georgetown on the island of Penang, something you can do with equal facility, since ferries leave constantly from the terminus adjoining the station. As train connections are not always smooth at the Thai border, it is wise to build Butterworth into your itinerary.
Malaysia, for its part, boasts the Jungle Railway, a rattletrap line running through the rain forests of the interior to the northeastern coastal state of Kelantan, a land of Malay fishing villages under the swaying palms. Yes, it must be pleasant.
Fact File
Accommodation standards and bookmg systems on KTM (Malaysian Railways) and the State Railways of Thailand. Reservations can be made up to 90 days ahead in Bangkok at Hualampong’s advance bookmg office, at Don Muang station and in other major Thai cities. Bookmg offices are generally open 8.30-6 pm, 8.30-12 noon on weekends and public holidays. Private agencies also make bookmgs for an additional fee.
Thailand Explorer passes are sold outside Thailand to international student identity card-holders under 26 and their families. Allowing unlimited second class travel (sleepers and AC extra), the pass costs US$ 33 (Rs 1,287) for seven days, $40 (Rs 1,560) for 14 days and $48 (Rs 1,872) for 21 days.
Fares on KTM are payable in local currency in Singapore or in Malaysia, regardless of the exchange rate differential. The KTM rail pass valid for 30 days’ first class travel costs US$ 55 (Rs 2,145) and for under 30s, the Explorer Pass Malaysia, valid for seven days’ economy travel costs US$ 32 (Rs 1,248). Please reconfirm fares while makmg bookmgs. Train information is available in Kuala Lumpur Malaysian train timetables are available on the Internet
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