The alarm on my phone wakes me up at 3.20 am. I dress, use the bathroom and pack my bags in 15 minutes, rush down to check out.
The taxi arrives on time to take me to Wakaf Bharu Station, a ten minute drive away. I’m surprised to see others awake at this time, groups of people eating at open air food stalls.
I wish that we could stop at one. I’m hungry. I should have ordered room service last night. It was cheap by Australian standards. Instead I tried to buy an item from the vending machine. It didn’t work and a staff member unlocked it, saying it’s not really an automatic one. All I got was a can of Milo.
Wakaf Bharu Station is located a bit out of the way with no shops nearby. There are already other passengers waiting and the big concrete shelter. But there’s no kiosk open yet, nowhere to buy supplies.
The Type 61 DMU pulls into the station and I clamber aboard. It looks very clean, very new. The 2 by 2 seats don’t recline, but they are decently padded, have tray tables and power sockets hidden at the bottom of the seats around the middle. There are screens at the ends of the carriage and a destination display. They showed the current speed of the train never about 90 km/h that I saw), the cabin temperature (22 degrees) and the upcoming stops.
The screens also have patriotic music videos on loop, four of them. Thankfully there is no sound, but I quickly grow to loathe the sight of them, and their stupid power moves and flag waving. They are heavily Malay with only a couple of token Chinese and Indians featured in the performances.
There is a large seated toilet at the end of the carriage. It is constantly mopped by an attendant, but the whole toilet is also constantly wet, even the toilet tissue. That’s Malaysia.
Beyond that was a small kiosk which didn’t seem to be open. So I had nothing to eat or drink but a half empty bottle of water and five Fruit Tingle Lifesaver lollies.
This was definitely bad planning on my part. But also a lack of places to buy anything around my hotel.
I’m hungry.
The cabin isn’t crowded, but neither is it empty. Passengers come and go throughout the journey. This is a local service stopping at all stations. People get on and off along the way, going about their daily business. Some have proper stations with long platforms, others are just a concrete shelter where passengers must clamber up and down stairs from ground level.
It’s dark when we set out and there isn’t much to see. By the time first light arrives we have left the coastal plains and entered the jungle.
Vine covered trees stand like green giants, reminding me of the movie Annihilation. Life is beginning to awaken in the kampongs, gathering in warungs for breakfast, chickens pecking at the ground in stop-motion frames.
There are often amber street lights in these rural spots in the middle of nowhere, still lit, incongruous. Any road traffic is mostly scooters at this time. Old cars sit parked in front of houses, looking as abandoned as an old Ford or Holden in the yard of an Australian house.
Palm oil plantations scar the landscape. Spindly white rubber trees are tapped, dripping into buckets, the odd worker checking on them.
We pass across vast brown rivers carrying the rain and mud from the recent wet season floods.
I’m on the opposite side of the train to the ride up, just sitting, listening to my music, staring out, nodding off now and then.
We stop at the platform at Bertam Baru. One guy heads out to a nearby eatery, checking with rail staff. He is left behind as the train departs, but then we stop and reverse on to the non-platform siding.
The northbound express from Johor Bahru, the same train I caught the day before, then passes through. The passenger then crosses the tracks with a bag of drinks and the doors are opened for him. Then we leave.
The domes of the limestone karsts reappear on the landscape, fractured white cliffs stark against the deep green of the jungle. The most accessible are those besides Gua Musang Station, an Eco Park within walking distance. I had wanted to stop there, but Kuala Lipis, the terminus of the train looked more historic.
I’m concerned though. The 12.45 service to Kuala Lumpur has disappeared from their booking page. Has it been cancelled? Sold out? I’ll have to hurry and check in person.
A crowd of young people board the train at Padang Tungku, the penultimate stop, no doubt to do Saturday business in their larger neighbour.
When we arrive I hurry out. Past the warung where I want desperately to have lunch, under the arch welcoming us to the town, past the mural featuring the train. I stride beneath the covered walkways of the old shop houses, past an old man scrubbing grease from the floor below his scooter parked out front.
Past the market, the Chinese temple and up the road to the concrete bridge towering over the brown river. On one side is the town I want to explore, but have no time to. On the other jungle and a hill.
A stepped footpath leads up the hill alongside the road, a lone worker sits and relaxes. It starts to spit with rain from the dark clouds overhead, then it gets stronger. I have no choice but to go on.
Left at the roundabout, across the road, some shelter, then the bus station.
The 12.45 pm bus is available. I pay for my ticket, but now I have 40 minutes to get lunch. Not enough time to visit the town, plus it’s really raining now.
I cross the road, but the two eateries look sad and empty, Middle Eastern rather than local dishes. It takes me a while and some help from residents to find Kedai Makan Anis, upstairs in a building opposite the bus station. Nasi kandar, a variety of dishes with rice laid out on a table in front. Perfect, quick food.
I get a plate of rice, chicken, sambal egg, cucumber, chicken curry sauce and order a Milo. Panas. Hot. Oh, so I know some Bahasa Melayu!
Oh gosh, it is so good! Just what I need.
Then back to catch the bus after buying a drink and some Tam Tam snacks for the ride from the tiny stall run by a young Indian girl.
The interior of the bus is garishly decorated with curtains, the seatbelts don’t work and the passenger ahead of me has water dripping down from his ceiling vent. Malaysian bus services don’t have a great reputation for safety, so I’m hoping that this will be fine.
It’s raining as we pull out, so I can’t get great photos. But it’s interesting to see more local life. Roadside durian stalls. The pack of kampong dogs sheltering from the rain beneath a bus shelter.
We turn into a couple of towns to pick up more passengers before joining the highway. We head past vast palm oil plantations on rolling hills. Eventually the highway merges into the same one that we once drove from Kuantan to Kuala Lumpur and back in a day.
Down from the Genting Highlands. There is construction of the East Coast Railway Line, the new one that will actually link Kuala Lumpur with the eastern coast cities like Kuantan. I don’t know if there will be an impact on the Jungle Railway, but it was an impetus to catch that in case.
It is with some relief that I spot the shadowy outline of the Kuala Lumpur skyline and we are soon into the city as B and Alex arrive at the airport from Singapore. Which of us will get to the hotel first?
There is a new building in the already tall skyline. Merdeka 118 is the second tallest in the world, but only thanks to the pointless spire, a phallic representation of a country that loves to boast, like those gestures in those patriotic train videos.
We pull into the bus terminus. I have survived! Now to get to the hotel. A light rail from the titillatingly named Titiwangsa to Masjid Jamel. Then change to another LRT on the Ampang Line to Glenmarie. I love these elevated railways. They give great views of the city. I see the transition from the central business district, to condos, to run down tenements and then the houses and greenery of the embassy district
It’s an hour ride to Glenmarie and over a kilometre of walking to get to the Paradigm Mall, just as it starts to rain again. B and Alex have just beat me by taking the KLIA Express to KL Sentral and then a taxi the rest of the way.
I’ve done it though. Made it from Kota Bharu to Kuala Lumpur. It’s been an adventure, that’s for sure!
The hotel is very nice, with fantastic views across the city, especially from the rooftop and infinity pool there. Below is the Paradigm Mall. After a wash, we go down to explore and get dinner.
The eateries on the level are pretty expensive. But on the second floor is Kim Lian Kee, a branch of the tiny stall at Petaling Street that serves famous black Hokkien noodles, a favourite of B’s. She is excited to try them again!
Now Alex wants to try KFC. We go down and he orders Hot’n’Spicy chicken with cheesy cereal fries. That chips covered in bright yellow cheese sauce with crushed cereal and curry leaves, a local thing (great with chicken or prawns).
My turn! I discover the Food Arcade in the basement, which is exactly the kind of thing we have been looking for. But there’s Ah Seng Laksa, which serves tiny “junior” bowls of assam and curry laksas. Okay, order that for everyone.
And a five spice bun and sesame ball with peanuts from another stall. Very full now.
But we need dessert! A&W root beer floats and a chocolate sundae.
That’s enough!
Time to return to the hotel roof for photos across the skyline. And bed. It’s been a long day. And a long way.
