Singapore

Singapore's a rather remarkable place. Once a part of Malaysia, it's quite different in outlook and focus. I live with a Singaporean in Sabah, and he's always going on about how Singapore has vanquished poverty and everyone owns a home and everybody's happy and fulfilled - why can't Malaysia do the same? What's wrong with the people? But Singapore has 3.25 million citizens - it's not so easy with Malaysia's 28.3 million. 

And Singapore is tiny. Their army runway is a major highway - the pots of plants in the middle get whisked off, and hey presto, you have a landing strip in case of war. Everything rises upwards, too - people live in towering blocks of miniature flats, laundry hung on long sticks out the window; business addresses are often something like Room 925, 89th Floor, Block H, Blah Business Park.

It's so multicultural too, Chinese Buddhist, Christian, Malay Muslim, Indian Muslim, Hindu, "non-religious" (I'm not sure that's even an option on a Malaysian census form...) Of course, each denomination has its place of worship too, so there are these amazing temple structures everywhere (yes, also soaring into the skies...)

Sri Mariamman Temple, Chinatown

Masjid Sultan, Kampong Glam

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

The Malay quarter was nearly the only place without soaring towers - just low shophouses converted into bars and stores selling organic bamboo clothing and handmade soaps, and an old cemetery.

Apart from height, my overriding sense of Singapore is of smell - incense, food (and what food - shops are selling Very Lucky Turtle Soup, and Pig Organ Stew). Everywhere I go, the scents change - from marigolds and incense in Little India, to fried food and incense in Chinatown, to car fumes in the City Centre... Actually, surprisingly, the air seems to be fairly clean in Singapore, even in the centre; a guide tells me that the bus we're on runs on natural gas, so perhaps most other cars do too.

Helix bridge, ArtScience Museum

Sometimes the didacticism gets a bit much. I mean, I know we had a Road Safety Track when I was a kid for learning about the roads, but here it's called the Road Safety Adventure Park... Walk on Left, Use Official Crossing, Clean Water: Beat Dengue... it's constant.

So is the sense of wanting to present a good front. On the bus, they go on about what a wonderful place it is: "Yes, this is a beautiful old park. Even though this is prime land, we protect our heritage. On the left is an old temple. I see you're wondering why it hasn't made way for a skyscraper yet. Well, even though this is prime land..."

But while they may be sensitive to heritage, they certainly aren't to the social gap. We pass for ten minutes through an area of obscenely wealthy properties, red Porsches sitting outside icing-cake-pink mansions. It's particularly blatant in space-desperate Singapore. Many of the houses here are smaller than my house in Zimbabwe, and were built decades ago, but because of the space, they're now worth millions of US dollars.

As I leave at the end of the day, I realise how space age Singapore can be, too: we pass through what looks like an abandoned tollbooth, but which is actually a solar-charged congestion charge point, picking up car signals as they whizz by, to add the charge to their monthly account.

All too soon, I am back at the airport for my flight home to Sabah. I'm there on time; my plane isn't: there has been flooding along the Sabahan coast, and the pilot prevented from reaching Kota Kinabalu Airport, so I sit and wait for 4 hours. If you're going to be delayed for four hours, Changi Airport is the place to do it - lots to keep one occupied, and for free. But eventually the plane arrives and I return to Sabah and to little Ranau, and because of the delayed flight, I have to set out for work immediately on arrival and there's no time to mourn the end of my long journey. 

I realise though when considering my next trip that this journey has taken almost four full pages from my passport, and I'm going to need to get a new one about six years early. So not that cheap a trip after all ;)

Wakaf Bharu to Singapore

The train to Singapore leaves at 7:20am from a little station just outside Kota Bharu, called Wakaf Bharu. It's the first time this trip that we'll be taking a day train - there are sleeper trains available on this route, but they leave and arrive in the dark, and who wants to miss out on the scenery promised by the train's nickname, The Jungle Line? Not me...

Wakaf Bharu is a fairly nondescript station. We share the platform with a lot of other people.

And also a lot of their baggage. These trolleys all belong to just one couple:

Inside, the carriage is pretty scruffy, with dirty seats and a vinyl floor that's seen better days. The windows have probably never been cleaned in their lives. It's a distant thought on the horizon from the adverts that dotted the Wakaf Bharu station - I wish I'd taken a photo of one of the posters, but I assumed I'd be seeing the real thing when I boarded. Alas, however, it's not to be: the carriage is not a gleaming spectre of transparent glass and silver steel. Oh well. It's only, what... 14 hours to go? 

The Jungle Line runs south from Wakaf Bharu, through the eastern states of Kelantan, Terengganu, and Pahang before entering the southern Johor state. After stopping at the main town of Johor Bahru (where this trip began), it will just be a ten-minute trip over the Causeway to the final stop in Singapore.

The Jungle Line's also known as the East Coast Line, but this is a little misleading, as its course runs quite far inland. The Jungle Line is much more apt, and although I spend the first part of the journey locked in a silent and deadly territorial war with my neighbour, I do manage to snap a couple of photos out the windows of the gorgeous scenery. 

I actually want to do this trip all over again, just to take proper photos! I'm aghast now, looking back, at how lazy I was on these trains... The open door between carriages was a mere couple of metres from my seat. Of course, the space around the open door was occupied mainly by leering men generally smoking, judging from the wind-defying haze of smoke, around ten cigarettes each at any one time. So not a particularly appealing spot to be.

But gazing out the window, there's lots to be seen, even if I don't capture it all. Gua Musang is a beautiful and terribly dramatic landscape of rock cliffs and caves, and as we pass near the National Park, there are Pied Hornbills, monkeys, and eagles to be seen.

And then it all stops, and mile upon mile of bloody oil palms whip past. Honestly, what is wrong with people? Who in their right minds exchanges primary rainforest and hornbills for ugly, spiky, inedible monoculture? Sheesh.

There are positive moments, though - like a family (a big family - there were eight cars in the carpark, and just one person got off or on the train) bidding fond farewell to their relative by singing and taking photos on the platform. 

Compared to Sabah, there's a proper mix of cultures here - Malay, Chinese, Indian; we pass Hindu temples and Chinese cemeteries as much as Malay ones, even in tiny villages. Just before Tenang, there's a temple for the safety of train workers. When we stop at the station for 30 minutes, I'm tempted to jump off, run back the 200m and take a photograph of the temple, which includes a small shrine to what looks like a brown ferret-like bear, but I'm glad I don't, because the train leaves after we've been sitting for 31 minutes, and I certainly don't want to be stranded without any luggage in this corner of Malaysia.

Some of the temples are quite grand, but a lot are just a few small three-walled rooms, each one housing a statue, Tamil inscribed above the entrance, dotting the edges of the plantations.

Some of the stations are lovely and sweet, little wooden buildings that bear similarities to traditional buildings in Sabah, but these are fast disappearing, and often as we departed a station, we passed a monstrosity of a new and shiny (and bland and ugly) building site. It will be a shame when Malaysia bulldozes the typical stations and opts for a standard globalised version of the railway, but what to do, lah?

It's a long day of travel without a nap in a sleeper to break it up, but eventually we draw into Johor Bahru's train station. Here my friend departs - she needs a pre-arranged visa for Singapore, so she flies home from here instead. I am continuing on to Singapore to complete the journey. The border formalities are simple - the train has almost emptied out, so just 4 border officials enter our carriage and check our passports to stamp us out of Malaysia.

And then we're off, slowly, out of the station and onto the 1,056-metre Causeway that separates Malaysia from Singapore.

Johor Bahru Station from the departing train

As we've moved downwards through the countries - Laos, Thailand, Malaysia - we've moved upwards through "development", each country considered more economically powerful than the last. But even down here in the south, heading for the most developed nation of all, the rules are lax, and I'm allowed to hang out of the open door trying to take a photograph of the two cities at night.

Looking back towards Johor Bahru from the Causeway

Singapore from the Causeway

So, are you ready for a looooong historical politics lesson? No, not really, but it is an interesting tale. I'll try shorten it for you. Singapore, of course, was a part of Malaysia in the mid-20th century. When it declared its independence, Malaysia apparently retained control of the beautiful, central, Art Deco Tanjong Pagar railway station. Train passengers therefore used to arrive here, and complete customs here, before entering Singapore. But in Singapore, land is precious - and besides, Malaysia, in a rather aggressive move, hung a sign out front declaring "Welcome to Malaysia." This wasn't the beginning of the tussle, more the beginning of the end. Singapore signed a new contract with Malaysia that would see the land Tanjong Pagar stood on return to the Singapore government. With me so far? Malaysia interpreted the contract differently, and decided that the land would return to Singapore, but only when Malaysia felt like vacating the station. Singapore moved their customs to the nondescript Woodlands Station. For a time, passengers entered Singapore at Woodlands, and left Malaysia at Tanjong Papar, leading to a bizarre situation of being able to physically occupy two countries at once. Then Singapore stopped all trains to Tanjong Papar. One-nil to Singapore. Malaysia had to move their immigration offices back to Johor Bahru, and the station returned to Singapore. I miss out on arriving at one of the loveliest and most historical stations in Asia by 11 months, and instead arrive at one of the blandest.

And emptiest - there isn't even an ATM or money-changer. Quite an odd place, really. I have to catch a taxi from the front, and ask him to stop at a bank so I can withdraw Singaporean dollars.