crossing the border - by train

Hi again,

We arrived all bushy tailed to catch the train to Tampin, Malaysia. We were at the station at 0700 which of course was far too early but we bought a Malaysian breakfast in the station cafeteria and the abiding memory of that was that the floor seemed to have had some sort of oil spilt on it because it was like a skating rink - particularly with our new orthotically designed sandals!! However, it was a very pleasant filling breakfast and we didn't break any old bones!

We left on time at 0800 and headed for Woodlands on the Singapore side of the border. Slowish trip but we saw another side of Singapore - more the everyday life of Singaporeans with a variety of houses - but certainly no slums. Some very upmarket and many high rise apartment buildings. We eventually arrived at the Causeway across the narrow straight to Johore Bahru, Malaysia. From the train we had an excellent view and it was difficult not to imagine the scene when the troops of the Japanese Imperial Army crossed the so-called impregnable barrier in amphibious boats into Singapore in early 1942. Reading of the atrocities committed by the Japanese at that time including the massacre (mainly by bayoneting) of over 300 staff and patients (including patients lying on operating tables) at the British Military Hospital makes grim reading. This was only a small part of the loss of life perpetrated by the Japs after Singapore had surrendered. That all this happened only 68 years ago is sobering and one wonders whether some similar occurrence could not happen somewhere else in similar circumstances again.

Anyway, enough of all this; we're supposed to be on holiday!! We stopped at Johore Central for Customs and Immigration which was typically bureaucratically inefficient and then we were on our way. We were in a  1st. class air conditioned carriage which was extremely comfortable but the quality of food on board left a lot to be desired. We felt grateful for that breakfast at Singapore station! We began to see what was to become a repetitive feature of our journey north over the next few days - oil palms. This is obviously a very major industry for Malaysia and has been responsible for massive deforestation over the years. The oil palm is a native of west Africa but has been planted extensively throughout SE Asia and among other things is a source of stock food. NZ is a major importer of this commodity which is used in great quantities in our dairy industry. One wonders what we are doing to the planet - here we are polluting our own country in the pursuit of ever more dairy production and using oil palm stock food to acheive this production which in turn is being exported in rapidly rising quantities to countries like Malaysia in order to feed the seemingly insatiable demand from Asia generally. Jean makes the comment that she remembers travels throughout southern Malaysia in the early 1970's when the predominant crop was rubber trees. Oil palms have now largely supplanted rubber but ironically the price of rubber is rising at the

moment and rubber planting is apparently seeing a resurgence.

We stopped at a few larger centres on our way north and began to notice another phenomenon which we would see time and again and that was the number of buildings which had been started (some of them apparently some years before judging by the state of deterioration) and then just abandoned. We never did find out the reason. The other thing we saw was the Eastern and Oriental passenger train parked on a siding. This is a very luxurious train which for up to approx. 6 thousand Australian dollars can take one in absolute luxury from Singapore, through Thailand and on into Laos. The carriages had originally been purchased new by NZ Railways as the Silver Star passenger service between Auckland and Wellington. It is yet another example of a great loss to NZ that they were sold at a knockdown price to the operators of the E & O for luxury conversion into one of the world's great train trips. It could have all been done in NZ and once again represents a lost opportunity for this country. 

After an uneventful trip we arrived in Tampin about an hour late about 2 pm. Managed to find a clapped out taxi and headed for Melaka (Malacca) 45 minutes and 80 Ringitts (NZD33) later. Got our first sight of driving Malaysian style and the antics of motorcycle riders are the main problem. Something to look forward to when we are to have our rental car delivered on the morrow! 

We eventually arrived in the old historic part of Melaka and our hotel, The Puri. This hotel had been a Peranakan merchant's house built in 1822. It has been delightfully restored and is built round a cooling plant filled courtyard. Peranakan refers to the original Chinese settlors who intermarried with Malays and in the main started successful merchant/trading businesses. The male descendants of these marriages are known as Babas and the females, Nyonyas. There is a whole culture built around the Babas and Nyonyas including their particular delicious cuisine. Chinese history in the region had begun many hundreds of years before European settlement with Chinese trading vessels having reached as far as East Africa across the Indian Ocean. The history of Melaka is fascinating with European settlement beginning with the Portugese in the 16th-17th. centuries followed by the Dutch as part of their spice empire of the Dutch East Indies. The British arrived in the early 1800's as part of the British East India Company's expansion. Stamford Raffles was probably the best known of the early British entrepreneurs and Raffles Hotel in Singapore is named after him. You can walk around the historic precinct of old Melaka of which the Puri is a part and easily imagine that you are back in those days were it not for the incessant motorised vehicles of today.

After a ravenous lunch we wandered the streets admiring the old buildings but it had been a long day so fairly early to bed tonight.