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!

Next up

It appears that I have not yet told anyone about our next holiday, which starts one week from today.

We'll be flying to Singapore and then on to Bangkok, where we have a couple of days before getting on a train - the Eastern and Oriental Express - which will take us through Thailand and Malaysia and down into Singapore.  Then we have a few days in Singapore before heading home.

I'm really looking forward to it.  We have friends who moved to Singapore about 18 months ago and we haven't seen them since, so catching up is on our list of priorities.

It's going to be a great holiday.