Took a lightning trip to Malaysia

I like trains. A lot. One of the things I was most looking forward to about the trip was taking the trip up to Kuala Lompur from Singapore after I slayed the GRE beast. It was a long trip - longer than anticipated, because I was a couple of hours early at the train station - and the economy line I rode on was pretty Spartan. But in a new country, everything is an adventure.

The Singapore train station is the one place I saw in that fair city that is kind of run down; but it's under renovation. I'd really like to see it again in a few years and see if it's undergone a miraculous rebirth ala Union Station or Grand Central. Malaysia is, of course, quite a bit more down at the heels than its southern neighbor, and sitting there in the station for a couple of hours, I felt a bit like I had already crossed the straits.

I lost that illusion as soon as we did get on the train and cross into Malaysia. There was quite a bit of rural poverty visible from the train throughout the six hour trip to KL, but also a lot of pretty landscapes and such. Both, of course, kept my attention for obviously different reasons, so I didn't get bored too often on the long trip.

Arriving in KL after dark, I had a slightly intimidating introduction to the city: quite a few people speak English, and there are signs everywhere, but the layout is very, well, convoluted. The main source of my confusion was that I had already decided on the hotel to spend the night at, and from the Lonely Planet guide, I thought the hotel was linked directly to the train station. It turned out that it was actually an old train station that had been renovated into a hotel, and there was a subway train that led there. But I was too tired to try to figure out the local MRT map (more about that later!), and took a cab there instead.

The hotel at the old train station was great, except that the air conditioner in my room was busted. No problem on that first night, as I was tired enough to sleep just about anywhere; but I wasn't nearly so forgiving the second night. Just one mosquito can really change your perspective on a hotel room, I find. One thing I really loved about the hotel, though, was its restaurant, which still looked very much like something you would find at an old train station - lots of ornate decor, high ceiling fans, leather chairs, a fair sprinkling of Asian kitsch, and the food wasn't bad either. Not to mention everything was quite cheap, a big draw for the country in general, actually.

Now, about the MRT. I've never run into an MRT quite like Kuala Lompur's. It's actually several different train lines run by different companies (at least three, from what I gathered), which intersect occasionally at stations and sometimes have stations across the street from each other; but since they're different companies, you have to buy separate tickets and go to separate platforms even on the occasions when they do stop in the same station. So right off the bat, that made it tricky to get around. It did at least make for some adventurous wandering around downtown KL on the morning of the one full day I spent there.

I'd like to say I spent that one full day doing something - anything - uniquely Malaysian, but, well, there honestly wasn't a whole lot to choose from in that department. I had heard that the city's boosters are trying to play it up as a cheap alternative to Singapore when it comes to shopping, and that does seem to be the case. There are stores everywhere there. I did seek out a couple of outdoor markets and spent a pleasant couple of hours browsing there, but I didn't see anything I couldn't buy back in Taiwan. I did at least manage to sample some of the local cuisine, which was terrific. Kuala Lompur also has a slightly different subset of Western food outlets than either Singapore or Taipei, so I was able to procure my first A&W root beer float since who knows when. So it wasn't all bad by any means. But I must admit that I wasn't too sorry when the sun went down and I had an excuse to go back to the hotel for dinner at that great restaurant I mentioned.

There was one interesting sighting at the hotel, which does still have a small functioning train station attached to it - I got off the MRT there, having finally deciphered the system to an extent. As I was getting off the subway, I saw the Eastern & Orient Express stopped outside the station for what looked like a refueling of some sort. With forest-green cars with gold lettering and trim, the train looked straight out of the 1930s, as did quite a few of the passengers, who were eating dinner in the plush dining cars. (Yes, you could see they were plush from all the way across the railyard!) Everything about it looked gorgeous and, of course, expensive. And naturally, it didn't make me feel so enthusiastic about getting on the train or bus (I hadn't yet decided where the next stop was at this point) out of town the next day. I'd have given a lot right then to be sitting in those air-conditioned cars in my linen suit - if I had a linen suit, anyway. My usual response to such things is to think of a pithy Fitzgerald quote that fits the scene. This time, the first thing that came to mind was the fact that Scott and Zelda spent most of their adult lives up to their eyeballs in debt!

When I got back to my room, I looked up the E&O in my tour guide, and found that hunch was right. The well-dressed passengers I had just seen had shelled out well over US$1,000 for the ride from Singapore to Bangkok, with stops in KL and Butterworth - so much for the "express" in their name! Somehow a plain old dinner of roast chicken and Tiger beer in that hot but pleasant restaurant didn't seem so bad after all.

So Kuala Lompur didn't sweep me off my feet like Singapore did. In any case, I didn't dislike it by any means and I'm glad to say I've seen it. It was a nice introduction to Malaysia, and was followed in style by my first Day At The Beach in far too long. More about that tomorrow.