(Penang – Kuala Lumpur – Ipoh – Tumpat - Khota Bahru – Johor Bahru – Singapore)
If a whole nation can be called "aspirational", then Malaysia seems to be it. The public poster propaganda campaigns which used to be: "Malaysia 2020!" now push the "One Malaysia" message to the various ethnic groups, curiously not entirely supported by discriminatory legislation against some of those same ethnic groups.
Poster campaigns exhort technological creativity and innovation as the national destiny while newspaper articles persistently push national "world record" achievements. One of the best selling books is the annual "Malaysia World Records": a kind of Guinness Book for dubious local achievements (and certainly NOT a "Guinness"-sponsored book in such an Islamic nation).
News stories constantly map local benchmarking achievements to the rest of the world. One example from the New Straits Times: Malaysian Airlines will be the third airline in the One World alliance to operate the A380 jet (when it "fully joins" the alliance), the 8th in the world to operate the plane, and the first in the world to operate a daily A380 service from Kuala Lumpur to London... and so on. News stories are dense with this national record keeping. You can imagine what the sports stories might look like in the lead up to the Olympics.
And the layout and tenor of newspapers are curious too, as the country heads towards its 50th anniversary celebrations as an independent nation, closely followed by an election which the long governing UMNO Party might lose (Do I hear the quiet mention of Anwar Ibrahim? Possibly not). Daily papers appear to have a fairly consistent "news value" pattern of: Very positive coverage of the national government on page 1 (with secondary news stories of corrupt practices by a range of other political parties printed directly below) and the photo of the PM or other UMNO lackey on page 2, doling out generosity to a pathetically grateful public. Particularly egregious is the provision of thousands of free bus tickets to travellers in north east Malaysia, timed just prior to a national election. There is a word for this kind of thing in other more open democracies. Coverage of the Australian government’s "Malaysian Solution seems fairly straight in the International news section, along with the start of the Australian Carbon Tax on 1st July.
After the serenity, calm and quiet of human interactions in Laos and Thailand, I’m now back into a country of loud laughter between friends, shouting across streets/crowds, and yelling into mobile phones… and of the call to prayer from many, many competing amplified mosques. The daily prayer times are published with the weather in the newspapers. State TV will broadcast Ramadan dates and fasting times for each main city.
News: The Penang State Government so badly mismanaged the construction of a multi level tourist carpark that no cars could actually fit into or use the building. It will be demolished and rebuilt.
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What is immediately different from the travel experience of the Malaysia of 20 or so years ago is that the Peninsula (when compared to Thailand. Laos. Indonesia..) feels unlike a third world nation. There are no desperate grinding slums along the rail lines, little begging, and the pace of development is immense. Putra Jaya, just 20 minutes south of KL city by a very fast train is, now Cyber Jaya: a fully planned technology/innovation city of stunning modern architecture and circuitous planned streets and transport routes reminiscent of a more glitzy and hazy Islamic Canberra. The Prime Minister's residence is here: sending a clear political message about the country's present and future. Freeways and construction are everywhere on the peninsula, and the West Coast rail system is being completely rebuilt and electrified to 160kph standard on metre gauge tracks within centrally coordinated projects for national development.
Poster in the KTM train booking office in KL: "Customer Care: View all customers as beautiful gardens that must be cultivated and watered frequently. They are worth it."
And over in the KL "Golden Triangle" of Bukit Bintang where it feels like a kind of Islamic Kings Cross (Sydney version) the western visitors, frantic Malaysian shopaholics and Middle Eastern tourists (with wives in full black purdah) are being offered wondrous massages by micro skirted girlies in a "full-on" tourism zone with amazing food (and alcohol somewhat less easy to locate...). The Death for Dahdah anti drug posters (which used to be sponsored by Cadbury) are less prevalent than in the past.
Getting around KL is a bit like choosing a fairground ride: Komuter Train? Light Rail? Monorail? Driverless Metro? All were built by different companies and not quite connected. Local fitness seems assured through stair climbing between systems: even more assured when you travel out to Batu Caves. This is the full Indian Religious Tourism Retail experience, dodging touts to climb hundreds of steps to sacred caves, guarded over by "world record" (naturally) statues of gods: “World’s largest statue of Murugan”. Best souvenir: a Petronas Twin Towers key ring/bottle opener with a thermometer in its stomach moulded into one small ugly silver package. (And yes, one of my friends IS going to receive this lovely gift).
All over Malaysian towns, posters for "Pre Ramadan Sales" are appearing...
Ipoh, north of KL: the entry into the city from the new fast train is through the grand British imperial Edwardian concrete pomposity of the railway station (and Grand Station Hotel: closed) to a square of similar buildings (under reconstruction), one of which is the Victorian mock Tudor pile of the "Royal Ipoh Club". The club house overlooks a lush cricket pitch, soccer grounds and basketball fields. It was naturally used by Japanese officers during WWII.
Two nights on KTM sleeper trains to and from the north east from KL is probably pushing these middle aged bones a bit too far as the train bounced along the light and short-jointed track of the jungle railway at 3am... Maintenance is not a strong point: metal doors banged all night, the automatic door to keep the between-carriages roar outside didn't, and something mysterious under the floor clanged against the underside of my bunk each time I was on the edge of something like cramped slumber...
KTM overnight train menu: Breakfast: sweet hot milk tea served in plastic bag with straw and jaffles filled with butter jam mixture. (Juggling a straw to stab into a hot plastic bag of tea in the bouncing sleeping berth on was an interesting fine motor skills challenge).
Meals: Nasi goreng (three varieties served in styrofoam), Mee goreng (same three varieties served in styrofoam), Maggi Soup.
Other: pre packaged, high shelf life junk food and drinks found on all lean catering operations in any country.
You can understand why most train passengers "BYO" but are welcome to eat their meals in the "restaurant" car with purchases of hot teh or copi.
Kota Bharu: on the north eastern coast greets you with "Welcome to Islamic City" and it is: Arabic public signs and street names may have Malay translations. The huge State Mosque and royal palaces are impressive symbols of local authority. At 4pm the school kids are crowding the neat streets in Islamic uniforms.
The World War II Museum is worth an hour or two: the hatred of the Thais by some in this most Moslem of areas (and one of the reasons for the ongoing Islamic insurrection in Southern Thailand) stems from, among other things, the Thais "inviting the Japanese" into Southern Thailand to hasten the invasion of the Malay States in 1941. In return, the Thai Government was given the north eastern areas of Malaya to govern on behalf of the Japanese. The British then returned, "negotiated" Malay independence, the communist insurgence was defeated. The Museum explains local political development (in Malay) and the resistance movements and successful independence (in English). For Australians, our government's support of the British and Malays against the communist movements (fostered by the Allies during the war as resistance to the Japanese) is acknowledged. A large memorial at the entrance to the museum commemorates Australia's first engagement against the invading Japanese. The quality of British 1940's military leadership, and one Gordon Bennet get little positive coverage.
The small museum display of one of the many bicycles used by thousands of Japanese troops to overrun the peninsula down to Singapore in a mere two months is fairly telling. The museum building itself was used by the Japanese secret police during the war for their interesting social experiments.
Getting from the end of the train line (Tumpat) into the city of Kota Bharu was easy: the local bus was stalled at the level crossing at the station. Getting back was far more entertaining. Tumpat had been small and not quite awake when I strolled it at around 10am: a shopping area of unpainted and somewhat awry wooden shop-houses edged by more traditional Malay village housing.
The open friendliness and "helooos" in Kota Baru to seemingly rare foreign tourists continued as a kind of mobile classroom experience on the bus ride back to Tumpat. Finding the Stesen Bas was easy: a bright scarlet pile in the middle of town with some of the direst user-pays squat-dunnies in Asia. A broken down bus displayed "TUM" among 4 indecipherable destination names and the right route number on the battered metal sign inside the windscreen. Some people were seated and enjoying the air-con on the bus. A longer line of locals was clumped around the door, not sure where/when it would go. The driver's legs stuck out from under the bus. Loud hmmering and scraping could be heard.
The driver slid out, stood, muttered something in Malay, trudged to the office, and the bus sat. For twenty minutes on in sticky afternoon heat, we queued til the driver reappeared, clambered in and motioned wearily for us to all to climb in and tell him our destination.
At the top of the steps the helpful and engaging adolescent conductor gave me a public pronunciation lesson of Tumpat: "Toom Pah!" (with nodding approval of the passengers on the stairs of the bus), so I wouldn't get chucked out at Wakaf Bharu: the only other Stesen Kereta Api they were serving. The market ladies seated in the front of the bus were enjoying the public language lesson immensely. I edged past their plastic washing baskets full of mysteriously odourous goodies in multicoloured plastic bags and found a seat next to a dozing old bloke.
That sorted: the real fun began. No fares had been collected as the driver had to learn how to use the shiny new ticket dipping/scanning machine. He wasn't keen. This process involved four conductors, one driver and a full load of passengers. Each of us passed on two or three ringgit notes forward across the crowd, called out our destination (rather proudly: "Toom Pah"!) and waited for the reluctant driver to dip a magnetic ticket.
Machine: "Not Working".
Four officials now pored over the printout of instructions, "helped" by many suggestions from laughing passengers. The metal guts of the machine then fell out and tumbled down the stairs onto the hot road surface. The driver wandered off again for many minutes.
We sat. We enjoyed the air-con.
Our busload of increasingly cynical passengers made bad jokes and laughed. Four conductors laughed too. The old bloke next to me, now awake, pointed to me and made some comment to the market ladies who laughed and nodded. He leaned over and said: "Only in Malaysia, huh?" I couldn't agree. The stoic driver reappeared with a large screwdriver. Fast reassembly ensued with loud passenger encouragement.
Still "Not Working".
The Techie (adolescent nerds look the same in every country, it seems) was summoned as the Only Person With The Knowledge to run the machine.
Still Not Working.
The driver stared at the Techie and gave two sharp taps to the machine with the screwdriver handle.
Working Now!
Once again we all took it in turns to pass our Ringgit down the bus and call out our destinations. (I was increasingly confident with: "Toom Pah"). Passengers made funny asides as they did so. Techie did not laugh. Conductors and driver were enjoying themselves immensely by now. Tickets were dipped and printed for everyone, but kept by the techie as proof that his lovely "Rapid Bus" machine was in use. The four humorous conductors and their humourless techie, picked their way around the market goods, legged it down the stairs and were gone.
For the rest of the journey, at every stop, the driver pointedly used the old-paper-tickets-for-cash system. He did still try to put me off at Wahkaf Bharu Stesen Kereta Api, but by this time my pronunciation of "Toon Pah!" had reached a level of excellence to convince him to take me to the right town. Where I stepped out of the lovely air-con with friendly passengers into torrential rain.
I was (still) a little early for my train. In the platform was the "new" Tiger Express to Johor Bharu. It was a gift from the Japanese government because budget airlines have killed their overnight sleeping train market. Apart from some orange paint at the carriage ends and KTM logos, it was in original condition. And there on the side of each carriage was the destination of the train: NAGASAKI, OSAKA... Maybe it will cross paths with equally "lost" second-hand Jakarta suburban trains some time into the future...
I appreciated the experience of the World War II museum just that little bit more as I travelled back down the less-than-smooth Jungle Railway that assisted the Allies' escape towards the fall of Singapore. I slept well....
You would think that the border crossing into the rather grand live-in shopping-mall-nation-where-you-catch-planes-called-Singapore would be easy.
Not so when you only have Malaysian money and there is no money changer or bank in the train terminal (which is really only there as a checkpoint for people changing countries). Local buses were now out of the question; so it was the taxi rank option.
Yes, Cabcharge will take your Visa card.
Sadly, at the hotel, it wouldn't take a DEBIT card, so hotel check in included some interesting financial transactions at horrible rates, and an elderly "bellboy" hovering till he could run and pay off the driver who was four floors down...
I was glad I'd carried one set of thermal underwear across 5 sweaty countries of South East Asia when I waited 30 freezing minutes for a taxi at Bleakheath, then 45 more freezing minutes til the local locksmith could get me into my house.