The Jungle Train
Gemas
Gemas
is a small provincial town with three x three blocks of shops. Cars drive
around all the time, hardly anyone walks here. Yet there was a decent hotel and
a vegetarian restaurant - only open for lunch, but they were willing to cook
something for us. We saw the most extraordinary phenomena when we took an
evening stroll: thousands and thousands of swallows had perched on every
telephone and electricity cable that hung over the road, and also on many edges
of facades. Always at exactly 15 cm distance from each other. In the twilight
you saw all those little black balls with a white belly sitting next to each
other. Fascinating.
The first stage was to Kuala Lipis, about 275 km in 5 hours. This railway line was recently refurbished, and new a/c trains were running. Still diesel, still single track.
With
about 60 km/h we drove through a green world. Many rubber and palm oil
plantations, some neglected. In between were plots where nature immediately
blossomed. Streams with swirling brown water, and pieces of flooded land. The
rainy season had just ended. ...nearly endless palm plantations... Sometimes on
both sides so close to the track that the branches touched the train. It seemed
as if you were actually inside the plantation, as if you were walking under the
palm trees.
Kuala
Lipis
Kuala Lipis once was a gold mining town. And the old center still has a wild-west feel. The British made it the capital of the state/sultanate around 1900. When the railway line came to town in 1922, development took a leap and a handful of colonial buildings were built: railway station, British residence and state mosque. And a row of stone houses in the main street between the station and the river - in your mind's eye you can still see the cowboys and covered wagons driving through.
After
independence, the capital moved to the coast and Kuala Lipis became less
important. Urban expansions look very unplanned: separate areas where a mall
and houses are built, at a considerable distance from each other.
We walked around a bit. Along some roads lay a narrow strip of jungle. One step into the jungle and it is dark, uneven, the soil full of smelly decomposing organic material, and the noise of a thousand of insects. Two steps into the jungle and you risk getting lost.
The
second stage was to Gua Musang, about 75 km in 2 hours.
Still
plantations along the way, but more and more wild green in between.
In
the last stretch, straight karst mountains appeared in the landscape, with bare
steep rocky sides, sometimes sloping slightly forward, bushes and trees in
cracks and on top.
Gua
Musang
Gua Musang has almost the same layout as Kuala Lipis. Three old streets between the station and the river, and new neighborhoods at a considerable distance from each other, all geared towards car traffic. Only the colonial buildings are missing. Instead you have the karst mountains that rise vertically, a dominant one right behind the station.
On
the platform of the old train station we turned right, heading south. At
the end of the platform, we went down the stairs and crossed the railway. A
path led into a very small kampong of
shabby wooden houses. It almost seemed deserted, but there were some children
milling around, watching us shyly. We followed the path between the houses,
also in a southerly direction. We crossed a stream via a narrow concrete dam.
Shortly after that we turned left and crossed the stream again via a slightly
larger concrete dam. I thought it was too narrow, until I found a stick to keep
my balance. Now we were just 10 meters from the rock wall, with a jagged edge
of jungle in front of it. There was a sort of path leading up between the
gigantic trees. With the help of ropes you could go further up. Immediately
surrounded by huge leaves and fallen branches. There was a ladder that you
could climb to go into a cave. But we didn't. This was already a beautiful
piece of jungle walk, however small and short.
⇒ If you want to make this walk, make sure to assess the risks.
Early
in the morning for the third leg of the Jungle Railway, we boarded the night
train that had left the Malaysian-Singapore border the night before. This was
an older train that wobbled and rattled more. We wanted to have breakfast in
the dining car, but the toast had already run out. It was still too early for
fried rice, moreover it was not vegetarian. So we enjoyed the view with a cup
of coffee. The landscape with the rising sun and rising morning mist was
beautiful.
We
rode out of the mountains and into the flat delta. Suddenly we were riding
between green rice fields. After 5 hours and 200 km we reached Kota Bharu, a
big city. Heart of the conservative Islamic northeast. You saw many facades
inspired by Arabic motifs. Malay, Chinese and Arabic were the most commonly
used languages on facades and signposts, while
English and Tamil had receded into the background.
It
took a day for the city to unveil its charms to us. There were still pieces of
old kampong between ugly high-rise
buildings. Some houses were old and dilapidated, others still looked well
maintained. It was wonderfully quiet and peaceful. A few houses must have been
villas in their day: large, beautifully designed, with hexagonal extensions and
verandas. Now sadly somewhat neglected. They would just be salvageable if
someone would pay attention to them now. But a little further on their fate had
already been announced: new houses.
Pattani,
in the deep south of Thailand
From Kota Bharu we entered Thailand. Trains no longer run on this stretch of railway line, so we had to take the bus for an hour. The border was a classic: first the formalities to leave Malaysia. Then walk through no man's land across the border river, parallel to the unused railway bridge. Then get the forms and stamps to enter Thailand.
In
Sungai Kolok we got back on the train, to Yala (120 km in 2 hours).
⇒ If you want to take this train, make sure to assess the risks.
For centuries, Pattani was one of the
Malay sultanates. Its heyday was in the 16th century. In the 18th century it
was conquered by Thailand. For a long time it remained Thai in name but
actually independent. At the beginning of the 20th century it was divided by
England and Thailand into a Thai and a Malay part. On the west side, Thailand
also gained Satun, and it gave up its claims on other sultanates - which became
part of British-occupied territory and later Malaysia. This was a treaty
between England and Thailand, the Malaysian sultanates who were involved had
nothing to say.
Thailand introduced Thaiification
programs in the part allocated to them, which did not go down well and
resistance movements arose that wanted autonomy, especially in the former
Pattani. At the beginning of the 21st century, they were taken over by
ISIS-like groups that want to establish an Islamic Caliphate, have become more
violent and aim for chaos and lawlessness, in which their criminal activities
flourish. They are now also turning against the local population because they
consider them not strict enough in their observance of islam. Police officers
and posts, Buddhist monks and monasteries, teachers and schools, and trains and
railway lines are particularly targeted by attacks.
Despite that, daily life is generally
quiet. It is a pity that the official travel advice from the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs is "red", which only further isolates the area. Red
here cannot be compared to the red for Syria or Afghanistan, for example. As an
outsider, only the heavily armed soldiers who travel on the train stand out.
(*)
We had been following the local news
closely for a while. Currently, it seemed relatively quiet and safe for
foreigners to travel through Pattani. We made two train journeys with a
stopover in Yala.
Yala
Yala is a vast, quiet, green city. There is a large district with all provincial institutions, built in circles around the city pillar. The roads are quiet and wide and lined with trees. The spacious layout means you have to walk quite a distance to get around.
The
city pillar is located in a temple in the middle of a round park with fish
ponds. Feeding fish is popular, and the fish will swim towards you as soon as
you stop on the bank. Hundreds of mouths snap above the water. The rear fish
push so hard that the front ones are lifted above the surface.
Bells
hang from the temple and tinkle softly in the wind. Inside, a few people are
doing puja. Pieces of gold leaf
flutter from the statue of a monk.
Everything looks peaceful and quiet. Muslims also feed the fish, even though it is a Buddhist tradition. And from under a headscarf the big, warm Thai smile radiates just as bright.
From
Yala we took the train to Hat Yai (another 120 km in 2 hours), where the
eastern branch rejoins the main line from Singapore to Bangkok.
More
(*) 6 weeks later the Dutch government changes the travel advice from “red” to “orange”. But throughout 2023 there were still quit a number of attacks and bombings on police posts and the like.