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Published: December 18th 2005
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Lindsay - We had arrived at the train staion in plenty of time, so much in fact that the ticket office hadn't opened. However the cafe-shop was open and I had sufficently woken up enough to start being hungry. The sign above the counter said "Roti", which registered in my dim memory as a nice kind of pancake/bread type thing, so after I had pestered Russell sufficiently to be sure he really didn't want any, I went up to try and order. In this case however the roti was simply toast, though spread with a kind of banana marmalade which was very nice, though Russell was still tired and grumpy and refused to be impressed.
Russell - It was 5:30am and you were trying to shove banana toast down me whilst the smell of everyone else's curry was all around. My stomach is strong but not that strong.
Lindsay - Once the ticket office opened I went up to negotiate the tickets. After reading other journals on Travelblog we had decided to go the best class possible. However this was a local train, which means all seats are economy. The Malaysian railway also seems to have broken with the
British rail traditions as the train actually left on time. We were a little concerned that we wouldn't be able to take any good pictures as all the windows were filthy. This turned out not to be a problem though, as no one bothered to close the doors at all. So provided you balance yourself so you don't fall out, you can take pictures without anything at all in the way.
As Russell started to wake-up and notice his surroundings, he became increasingly horrified at the flagrant railway safety breaches that were going on all around him, muttering about people walking on the running rail, and maintenance gangs without their hats on. I was more concerned with the holes in the walls of the train, and besides I didn't pay much attention as he does this sort of thing at home too.
Russell - I'm sorry but the guy selling grapes on the train had the sense not to step on the running rail but the guy in the railway uniform stepped on both rails and in the four-foot. They are short but not that short. None of the maintenance gangs I saw were even wearing hi-vis never
Railway 3
Economy Seating! mind hard hats. I had my Network Rail Safety 365 water bottle with me but they didn't seem interested.
Lindsay - Although the train did set-off on time, it's worth mentioning that we didn't make as good a time as we could, mostly because the train kept reversing back to stations we had already passed.
Russell - And that's another thing. When they reverse the trains the driver doesn't stop and walk through the train to drive from the other end. He actually reverses a 15 carriage train from the back! How can he see where he is going and where the maintenance people are?!! Really, they need help.
At one stop an old lady got on the train with some baskets of goods to sell at the market. The train signalled it was about to move and she lunged for the door with a scream. I thought that she had been thown off the train but it turned out she hadn't got all her baskets on yet so the train came to a sudden halt and waited for her to put them all on. She brought basket after basket, filling the aisles and seats alike. This was a woman in desperate need of a freight train. Lins and a couple of people tried to help her but were shouted at for their trouble. We all decided to let her get on with it.
Lindsay - Although once she was settled I was rewarded with a tug at the sleeve, and a gesture toward some interesting little triangular packages, wrapped in leaves that she had bought from the snack and grape seller, who kept wandering up and down the train proffering his wares. However I had just eaten and after Russell's reaction to the banana marmalade I thought it best to politely (hopefully) decline. I offered her some of my biscuits but she seemed similarly disinclined.
Russell - The jungle railway is an amazing piece of engineering as it winds through interior of one of the oldest rainforests in the world. The views were fantastic and when my camera is feeling better I'll share the photos (the jungle rains have not agreed with it!). I really wonder however how they make any money from it as they only have two trains a day travelling on it but it was an experience I won't forget. It is a long way however and after 10 hours in an economy seat I was glad to see Jerantut station, our destination. We did stop at Tembeling station which is closer to the park than Jerantut but as it was one of the many platform-in-the-middle-of-nowhere type stations we decided not to risk getting out there.
Arriving at the station we were immediately stopped by someone "trying to help" otherwise known as sell us an expensive taxi ride so we tried to shake him off. We headed for the Taman Negara information stand but it was empty. Our tout was persistant and in the absence of any other information we decided to listen. It seemed our only options were to overnight in Jerantut and go to the park in the morning by bus and boat or take a taxi direct to the park now. We thought about it and decided we were tired and didn't care much. We just wanted to get to the park so we took the cab. The drive was over an hour so the taxi wasn't that expensive in the end and he took us to the hotel we requested without arguement, a first I think.
So we arrived in Kuala Tahan, on the edge of the national park ready for our Rainforest experience.
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