The Jungle Railway

After the Perentians, our plan was to visit the national park Taman Negara, situated in the inner of Peninsular Malaysia. Taman Negara offers jungle trekking, fishing, waterfalls amongst other things.

I had read about the railway service connecting Tumpat (a small town in northeastern Malaysia, near Kota Bharu) and Singapore through Gemas. The official name of this line is East Coast Railway, but since it goes right through the Malaysian Peninsula with its thick forests, the nickname "Jungle Railway" is very appropriate.
The idea of travelling through the jungle by train appealed to me and the Jungle Railway was a very good option because it stops at several places from which you can get into the Taman Negara National Park.
After talking to other travellers however, we decided to skip Taman Negara in favor of the less touristy rainforests in Borneo.

It proved that the best (well, actually the ONLY) way to get to Borneo from West Malaysia is to fly. We decided to fly from Singapore and to get there by train. Since the day service stops at every station, it is very slow and always runs late, the better option was to take the night train.
I was a bit sad on missing out on views of the jungle, but the night service was definately the most convenient one. Said and done, we purchased tickets for 1st class sleeping compartment online. The train was scheduled to arrive in Singapore at 10:15 and our flight to Kuching in Sarawak would leave at 17:35. Should be enough time, since it only takes about 20 minutes from the Woodlands train station to Changi Airport by taxi.

We got on the train in the town of Tanah Merah and it was a pleasant surprise when the train rolled in to the station on time. I had been counting with the same kind of delays that the local trains in KL have. When we left the station at half past nine, it was already pitch black outside, but you could make out the silhouettes of the trees when we went through the jungle. It was a nice feeling to know that we were travelling through real jungle.

The compartment was not too bad, but the beds were a bit short. Pretty soon after leaving the station, we got into our beds and tried to sleep. Here is the problem: the train was not the latest model neither were the tracks and the ride was very bumpy to say the least. It was the noisiest train ride of my life and a very rickety-rackety one. At times, it felt as if the train did everthing it could to fling me out of my bed. Eventually, I was rocked to sleep by the movement of the train.

A couple of hours later I woke up as the train abruptly came to a stop. A glance out of the window told me that we were not at a station, but in the middle of the black jungle and it was still night. Looking at my mobile phone, I realized it was only eleven. Matthias had woken up by the sudden lack of movement as well and after waiting for ten minutes or so, he went out to ask why we had stopped.

The refreshment man told him that there were elephants on the track and it could take a while before we could continue.

We didn't think much about it and went back to sleep. When I woke up the next time, it was two in the night and we were still not moving. As I was cursing the elephants who wouldn't move out of the way, Matthias woke up and he went to ask the train conductor how much longer he thought it was going to take.

The answer:

"Oh, Sir, we have hit an elephant. They are cleaning the tracks, but we need to replace the locomotive."

As Matthias asked how much delay he thought we would have, all the man said was: Much, much.

And then he very generously made an offer:

"You can go to the front, take picture!"

As if taking photos of a very dead elephant (an elephant who got hit by a train...) was the kind of thing all tourists wished for when the woke up in the middle of the night.

I felt sad for the elephant and frankly, just thinking about it laying there dead made my stomach want to turn.

We were pretty sure by now that we would miss our flight, but since we could not replace the locomotive or move the elephant to clean the tracks, all we could do was to go back to sleep.

When I woke up again in the early morning, we were moving again and in the right direction. Now at least I would get to see the jungle in daylight, so it was not all bad.

We arrived in Singapore at 16:25, six hours late, and when we got to the airport it was 17:10 and we had no chance of catching the flight. All there was to do was to buy a ticket for the next flight and wait.

I can tell you that spending a night at the airport after an 18 hour train ride is not something I would recommend. Luckily, we got a flight for the next day and arrived safely in Kuching in the early afternoon.

What we did learn from the whole thing: Even if you are an elephant, trying to stop a moving train is a stupid thing to do.

And, never count on trains being on time. Next time we fly, we will not arrive last minute and have more of a buffer than six hours.

This was the very first flight I missed in my life, the same goes for Matthias. But hey, who can say: "I missed my flight because my train hit an elephant."