Sunday 24, Day 3 - overnight Malaysia to Thailand

 As I write this 3 days later we are driving through rain, the tail of a more northerly typhoon. But back to Sunday ……. this morning Malaysia had an earthquake - fortunately it was south from Kuala Lumpur. Never a dull moment!

Breakfast was basically anything you wanted. Here mini pancakes are being cooked 

Five hours later we were again waiting, Today we were continuing our northbound journey so we all headed to the station early to catch the 10am train to Padang Besar at the Malaysian-Thai border. Tracking beside us along the way were the Cameron Highlands, a rocky spine that runs through Malaysia north-south. Quite stunning. We passed beside many National Parks and at one point we crossed Lake Bukit Merah, the first man-made and the only freshwater lake in Malaysia with a railway line spanning it for 3.5km. Interesting experience which saw us darting back and forward between windows to capture some photos.

We travelled along the yellow route from KL to Padang Besar (highlighted in red)

Magical mountain shapes started popping up

Lake Bukit Merah which the train crossed

(Taken from the train window) The villages and farms intrigued me, they look quite impoverished 

Five hours later we were again waiting, waiting to go through Malaysian immigration in order to leave the country followed by another immigration exercise to allow us to enter Thailand. Enough said - eventually we emerged to stare a little open-mouthed at our train. I think it was circa 1940s or probably earlier! Bits were broken off or not working inside our carriage, some held together with duct tape and the doors to and between the carriages didn’t close properly. It was like camping - only noisier and hot! It was a bit of a shocker - in all senses of the word. The train rocketed along shaking and shuddering, clanging and banging. Unfortunately, we were the closest to the door and the noise was pretty relentless and diesel fumes (and those from the toilet in the next carriage!) were sucked into our carriage to waft malodorously past my nose. I put my ear plugs in and pretended to sleep. It was very a long uncomfortable night. Incidentally we had been told there was a dining car on board but we didn’t get to eat until after 10pm with a tray of would-you-believe soup, balanced on our knees on our bunks. I think we were being ‘broken in’.

We saw many trains with carriages designated as women only

At Padang Besar Lindsay Doig went for a little walk to photograph this Hindu temple

Train graveyard

This door didn’t close most of the trip

Our carriage #12. Privacy was what looked like green shower curtains.

Inspecting the signs and testing switches that simply didn’t work.

Commanding signs. The reference to the fruit with strong smell is durian which I love

A beautiful sunset