Eastern and Oriental Express Part 2 - Malaysia

After crossing the border into Malaysia nothing really changed, although the scenery was a little different, as there are a lot of palm oil plantations everywhere. Pretty much as far as the eye could see, in fact.

Our stop in Malaysia was at Butterworth Railway station, where we boarded a bus for the short drive to Penang Island.

We were supposed to go on a trishaw ride through Penang to the Eastern and Oriental Hotel, but our driver looked like he might have been a heroin addict and soon lost the rest of the crowd. We ended up making him stop so we could get out and walk. Luckily we found one of the train passengers who told us where the hotel was so we could meet up with the rest of the group.





We got back on the train late in the day. The most exciting thing that happened that day was an emergency stop by the train - we were having lunch and one of the waiters yelled out "hold your glasses" so we all grabbed our glasses and only one person spilt theirs as the train ground to a halt in a very short time. We had to get a replacement engine as ours had blown a gasket and kept overheating. It was quite exciting.

By the way, on the Eastern and Oriental Express you get silver service tea sets and cutlery, heavy crystal glassware and fine bone china crockery. No plastic to be seen!

Eastern and Oriental Express Part 1 - Thailand

The next part of our holiday was a train ride from Bangkok to Singapore aboard the Eastern & Oriental Express train.  It was totally amazing and I highly encourage anyone who likes train travel to do it.



We left from Hualampong Railway Station around 5pm, and settled into our lovely cabin.

 (that's not me - I borrowed this image from the E&O website)

We had dinner late that night, around 9.15pm, but after consuming some snacks and a bottle of champagne in our cabin we really didn't care.  By the way, the dress code for dinner was formal - men were expected to wear a jacket and tie at least.  I had an assortment of dresses with me so that didn't matter.

The next morning we were woken up by our lovely cabin steward at quarter to dawn so we could see the train cross over the trestle viaduct along the River Kwae.  We arrived in the Observation car when it was still dark and consumed some coffee to wake up.

Here's the sun rising:


Our next stop was the Bridge over the River Kwai itself. Our train stopped on the bridge and we all got off:


And then we went on a raft ride down the river, passing under the bridge:


And down to the museum in Kanchanaburi (sorry, no photos allowed). It was quite fascinating and I had no idea so many people - both prisoners of war and asian workers - died to help the Japanese build this bridge and the Thai-Burma Railway.

We continued our train journey after this stop and crossed over the border into Malaysia early the next morning.

Thailand

We departed Melbourne on 2 March, and arrived in Bangkok (via Singapore) around 8pm.  We were met at the arrivals gate by a man who whisked us through security and immigration, took us to collect our luggage and then found our driver for us.  Got to our hotel - the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok - and checked in very quickly.  If you are every going to stay in Bangkok, I highly recommend the Mandarin Oriental.  The rooms are lovely, the staff are friendly, and the service is excellent.

As we were only in Bangkok for one and a half days, the next morning we departed on a quick tour of the city.

Chinatown:


The Old Royal Palace:


One of many monuments with elephants:


The Chao Phraya river, which runs through Bangkok:


View of the river from our hotel room:


Bangkok was an interesting mix of old and new, rich and poor. It was extremely hot - about 38degC each day, and very humid. I swam every day in the pool, which you can see at the bottom of the last picture above.

On the night before we left, we decided to have dinner in the hotel's famous french restaurant, Le Normandie. It was extremely glamorous and the food was excellent. What was even more exciting, was that the Crown Prince of Thailand's first wife was also dining there that night, so we got to greet her as she arrived in the restaurant (with an entourage of about 20, and four security guards). Most exciting. My shoes were better than hers, though.