We are still on the train. Have been since 8:00 AM this morning. It is now 3:00 PM exactly.

If travelling from Thailand to Singapore, fly.
Or take the sleeper train.

We thought we would wait and eat on the train. So we chose from the fourteen hour dinner menu which consists of:

Rice
Noodles (Plain)
Rice with Egg (ick)
Egg Sandwich (which is a loose title, Lisa had one and took three bites and binned the rest)
Chicken Sandwich (which, even if we weren't now vegetarian, didn't seem appetising)
Hot Chocolate (not very sweet)
Coffee (which I am not about to try)

Hooray for good train food. Good thing we are only on this train for fourteen hours. Otherwise we might starve. (sarcasm)

We are both going stir crazy. Bored and very hungry. I jumped out of the train at a local station and managed to buy a raisin roll before the train whistled and I had to run for it.

Yummy. I should have bought five.

The scenery is flat, green, mildly jungly and full of power lines and old shack houses. Oh, and the palm trees.

AN INTERESTING WATER BUFFALO

Behind us are two jabbering Hindi women who, besides being rude, chatter at full volume. One keeps burping all the time.

I was worried when Lisa sat up after taking a nap and said, "I know now why people kill other people. If I had an apple I would walk behind us, shove the apple in that woman's mouth, gag her, tie her up and throw her in a dark corner."

I understand. If I had an apple, and would have thought of it, I would've done the same thing. Although thinking of the menu, we would have fought each other to eat it.

The onboard entertainment is also interesting. We are sitting three feet from the television. It is at eye level. The compartment below it which houses the VCR and electrical wires occasionally flops open and slams loudly on our table. Once it flipped an open coke can straight onto Lisa's lap. I almost ran for cover, but luckily the coke can was empty otherwise, taking everything else into account, you would have read tomorrow's headline.

We are about to pull into Kuala Lumpur station where I will attempt to get us food and get back onto the train before it pulls away. I feel like I am a contestant on one of those new adventure game shows. Dun dun da da. . .

Oops false alarm. I have a few minutes still. That is, of course, unless I eat my arm off - which would slow down my typing considerably.

Lisa just saw the porter carry in a box of chocolates and put them in the food locker (across from us.) I can see she is wondering two things at the same time. 1. Could she get to them before me, and 2. When she reaches them, how many can she eat before anyone catches her (or I pull her off to get my share).

THE PRODUCT OF MY FOOD HUNT.

The train stopped, she told me for 2 minutes so I hiked it over the barrier and to the nearest shop, grabbed what I could and ran back at full speed. The they announced we had 5 minutes at this stop. We had to look at a "Dunkin Donuts" in the distance realising it would not be today that we would be happily eating on those delicious donuts.

We are due in Singapore tonight at 9:30 PM We have tonight, tomorrow and the next morning to see the sights of the city. I think the highlight is something about a red carpet and ducks, but I will fill you in when I witness it for myself.

MY ON BOARD ENTERTAINMENT

It's hard to say really, what was the best part so far. I am now on a train travelling through southern Malaysia towards Singapore. Ideas of jungle treks from broken down trains run swiftly through my mind. Tigers, rhinos.

I enjoyed and am somehow already reminiscing about the Thailand isles and the quiet scenery, the do-nothing atmosphere and the contentment I felt.

I look forward and see constant movement again. Backpacks, heat, planes, trains and dusty jeeps. Changing money, foreign taxi drivers, finding hostels.

Outside I see the ocean. We must be near the coast. We have been on the train since AM, and it is now swiftly approaching PM Only two and a half more hours to go.

A MALAYSIAN RIVER

This is where I now get philosophical.............

Several thoughts occur to me. Some of them pretentious, some of them saddening. I have the thought that many people that I meet will never go the same way or see the same things as I have. They will never taste real Indian cooking or swim in the Gulf of Thailand. They may never see the sun go down and the tide go out on a place accessible only by boat, or gaze tiredly off the ferry as the sun comes up over Georgetown, Malaysia.

Saying all that I look around me and feel saddened. All the towns and all the people walking by, all the smells and all the tastes never to pass my senses. The places out of fellow travellers stories I will never have the chance to see, all the cities in the guide books that I will never get to be in.

All the richness in our lives that we take for granted. Living on the other side of the world - things seem different, more unique. The food we eat at home will never be known to those who live here. The liquids we drink, fantastic.

Yet I sit here on the train. Some might call it pompous, stuck up, proud to say the things I have to say. I do not know how to label myself or anything else I have come across in the last three months, so my language and my thoughts may not be polite, correct or proper, but that's OK.

The television is on again on this train. The Mississippi river has burst it's banks and is sweeping houses away.

Thank you television for showing me with your eyes. Those people whose houses are gone live a life so foreign to me I will never know. My prayers are with them.

Goodbye.