Merlion

Saturday 7th January 1984

We moved our baggage into the dormitory on the sixth floor but apparently all the beds were still taken. Our sortie to the General Post Office at Fullerton House, which was situated by the famous lion-headed fish statue, taught us that we could kiss goodbye to our mail. It was not with Post Restante, so the clerk told us that it would have been “returned to sender”.

The Merlion is the national symbol of the city-state of Singapore. It is depicted as a mythical creature with a lion's head and the body of a fish. Being of prominent symbolic nature to Singapore and Singaporeans in general, it is widely used to represent both the country and its people in sports teams, advertising, branding, tourism and as a national personification and patriotic emblem of the Singaporean nation. The Merlion was first used in Singapore as the logo for the tourism board.

George picked up his other 4x24 Exposure films worth of photographs and we decided against flying to Cairo as it was £27 for an Egyptian Visa. The photographs cheered us up again and the Egyptian Visa problem exercised our flexibility. We decided to fly to Athens in Greece with a stopover in Moscow for £234 on Aeroflot but would have to wait until Monday for confirmation of our booking.

PJSC Aeroflot, the Russian Airlines commonly known as Aeroflot (English translation: "air fleet"), is the flag carrier and largest airline of the Russian Federation (at this time it was still The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)). The airline was founded in 1923, making Aeroflot one of the oldest active airlines in the world. Aeroflot is headquartered in the Central Administrative Okrug, Moscow, with its hub being Sheremetyevo International Airport.

The rest of the day passed in window shopping and the accumulation of more S$2 music cassettes, bringing the total to eleven each. Our problem now was how to play them. This was solved by the purchase of a couple of Unicef Z-8 “Mini Home HiFi’s”. This composed of a Walkman with detachable speakers and cost S$45 Singapore Dollars including a S$6 mains adaptor.

Back at Peony Mansions we were finally allotted our dormitory beds in a seven-bedded room that looked like a bomb had hit it! Personal belongings and drying laundry were scattered hither and thither. We assembled our HiFi’s and treated ourselves to an LP side of favourite music each before hitting the streets again.

We selected the nearest McDonalds for our evening repast and recreation, striding swiftly to our goal, with me stubbing my toe in the process. These flip-flop sandals don’t offer much toe protection. During the day we had avoided the few rain showers and I ignored a young girl of about twelve years old who kept winking at me in Burger King.

Motorcyclists roared up and down wearing their jackets back to front as we risked life and limb scurrying across the multi-lane one-way streets. Back at the dormitory we were intruded upon by two English blokes who wanted to see our photographs.

One of them assured me that I would not require a return or onward ticket to gain entry to Australia and then produced a list of Australian Immigration “Conditions of Entry” that proved otherwise. You had to have either a return or onward ticket or sufficient funds to purchase one.

That was me scuppered as far as Australia was concerned. We listened to our Walkman music players before turning in at 00:30 hrs on Sunday morning.

Music Cassettes that we Purchased in Singapore:-

Let’s Dance David Bowie

Duck Rock Malcolm McLaren

The Best of The Doors The Doors

The Very Best of The Sex Pistols The Sex Pistols

Dig the New Breed - The Jam Live The Jam

Quartet Ultravox

Vienna Ultravox

Dazzle Ships Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD)

Whammy The B52’s

Romance of Our Time Various Artists*

Combat Rock The Clash

London Calling The Clash

One Step Beyond Madness

War U2

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Elton John

Tropical Gangsters Kid Creole & The Coconuts

My Aim is True Elvis Costello

Born to Run Bruce Springsteen

The Singles Siouxsie & The Banshees

Viva! Roxy Music

Party Mix The B52’s

* Click here for "Romance of our Time" Tracklisting.

Fast Food

Friday 6th January 1984

We were up at 09:30 hrs. to find that nobody had checked out of the dormitory, so our promised beds were not forthcoming. The bloke in charge bid us come back later and he would sort something out.

We went out and wandered up Orchard Road and noticed a sign advertising a one-hour film developing service in the Lucky Plaza. We settled for the one-day service as it was cheaper and spent ages going through the S$2 music cassettes on offer. I bought 4 and George bought 6 before we left the stall.

The Lucky Plaza was a modern multi-level shopping precinct/mall with escalators and one of those egg-shaped exposed lifts/elevators going up the central column in the atrium. All manner of luxury goods were on sale including clothing, state of the art photographic equipment, jewellery and all sorts of electronic gadgets and gizmos.

We moved on to a Burger King restaurant and battled with a Whopper before continuing up to the Tanglin Road. We passed a luxury hotel and I saw a girl that I vaguely knew, who used to work at the BP Research Centre in Sunbury-upon-Thames. It's a small world!

We went into the Malaysian Airline System (MAS) Travel Office on the sixth floor of Tanglin Plaza to enquire about flight prices. We were stunned by the half-expected extortionate prices. A single flight from Singapore to Brisbane in Australia cost £351 which seemed ridiculous to us, as Singapore to London was £228.

The smiling girl on the desk in the Travel Agents also raised the point that we would require a return or onward ticket in order to gain admittance to Australia. Thus, we set off to the Australian High Commission to verify this. I had a one-year working visa for Australia, but George only had a tourist visa.

We had a 2 hour wait until it re-opened after lunch at 14:00 hrs. so we sat at a pavement café sipping fruit juice. We found the staff in the Tanglin Road Post Office very helpful in directing us to the Australian High Commission, but they failed to raise our hopes about tracking down our mail from home.

The modern Australian High Commission was next to the British one, an identical building with the same expansive grounds. We took a numbered ticket and waited for our number to pop up above the “Visas” window, which it eventually did after forty minutes.

An agitated elderly woman dithered about, muttering about the theft of her travellers cheques to divert our attention from the window where the clerk was conducting business at a leisurely pace. We left the Commission none-the-wiser.

I was told that I had a working holiday visa, a fact that had been known to me since I successfully applied for it in London, and that yes, I might need an onward or return flight ticket. He also enlightened George by explaining that “sufficient funds” meant having enough money to last his stay in Australia without working.

Arriving without “sufficient funds” would mean us being repatriated to the U.K. at our own expense. This meant being flown back to London on the next British Airways flight with our passports held for ransom until we refunded the cost of the flight.

We returned to the Travel Agent to enquire about alternative air fares. A single to Perth was £225 but a return valid for a year was £613. There was a stop-over flight back to London via Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei, Honolulu, Los Angeles and New York was expensive and could only be arranged as far as Los Angeles. From there you were on your own.

Another alternative on offer was a Singapore, Sydney, Aukland in New Zealand, Sydney again, New Caledonia, Jakata, Singapore flight for £568, which George could afford but was well above the £200 that remained in my budget.

Apart from flying one way to Perth and hoping I wouldn’t be refused admission, repatriated and left penniless, the only sensible option was to forget Australia completely. A Czech airline flight to Cairo was £250 and George suggested taking this and seeking work on a kibbutz in Israel.

A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism. He would lend me sufficient funds from his remaining £1,100 and we could return to England in the spring.

We mulled this over in McDonalds and at another restaurant in Lucky Plaza as we waited for 17:30 hrs. when our developed photographs would be ready for collection. The waitress gave us a delightful smile as we left for the Photo Stall and soon, we were gleefully running through some marvellous snapshots of our journey so far and great memories flooded back.

We paid our S$6 per 24 Exposure film and settled in the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant (more English food!) to transfer our photographs from the cardboard wallets to our free pocket albums. The effect was just as morale boosting as receiving mail from home and we chortled at our insane appearance at the start of our journey. We had looked like two cropped-haired inmates who had escaped from an asylum!

We returned to our “residence” in the block above the Car Showroom opposite the Bencoolen Hotel. No dormitory beds had been vacated but we could sleep on mattresses on the floor in the common lounge of an apartment of rooms for S$5. We paid up, George had a shower, and we were soon back out on the streets again.

We followed Clemenceau Avenue and ate Mee Hong Kong, a vegetable and noodle affair, at Newton Circus. This was a more flashy collection of food stalls filled with a more affluent crowd of Westerners and local diners. This affluence was reflected in the vast amount of food, which was ordered and then left uneaten, the rotundity of the customers, the vast number of empty expensive beer bottles on the tables and the trendiness of the diners attire.

We ate up and moved on. McDonalds shut up shop as we approached at 22:00 hrs. so we went into the 24-hour Kentucky Fried Chicken on Orchard Road. We wrote up our daily logs and sipped coffee as an excessive number of staff crawled and toadied around us. Indeed, on girl with a concave face appeared to be employed solely to open the door as people approached.

I have only been in Singapore for 2 days, but already it feels like home. It is compact enough to cover comfortably on foot and there is always something to occupy your time. It is a shame that only a few of the new buildings reflect the Chinese and Oriental influence on the city. Chinatown itself is rapidly being demolished.

Also, it is so international with people from all over the globe on the streets, including a distracting number of shapely and beautiful women walking about. We walked back to our lodgings and found two mattresses prepared for us. It was quite luxurious really and after a short read we dropped off to sleep with the French windows open (we were on the third floor) and one of the proprietors sleeping on the balcony.

Singapore

Thursday 5th January 1984

Thursday night and once again we are the guests of Ronald McDonald. Shivering in the Arctic air conditioning, we tucked into a Big Mac with fries and coffee. The day had started with the whine of my alarm clock at 06:30 hrs. The noise was continuous and thus distinguishable from the intermittent drone that had awoken us on two occasions during the night.

Our next destination was Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, which is a sovereign island city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude (137 kilometres or 85 miles) north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bordering the Straits of Malacca to the west, the Riau Islands to the south, and the South China Sea to the east.

Although its history stretches back millennia, modern Singapore was founded in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles as a trading post of the British Empire. In 1867, the colonies in East Asia were reorganised and Singapore came under the direct control of Britain as part of the Straits Settlements. During the Second World War, Singapore was occupied by Japan in 1942, but returned to British control as a separate crown colony following Japan's surrender in 1945.

Singapore gained self-governance in 1959, and in 1963 became part of the new federation of Malaysia, alongside Malaya, North Borneo, and Sarawak. Ideological differences led to Singapore being expelled from the federation two years later, thereby becoming an independent country. Since then, Singapore is considered the only fully sovereign city-state in the world, with its own currency and technologically advanced military forces.

We were on our way to Kuala Lumpar Railway Station within 10 minutes and just after 07:00 hrs. we were in our luxurious seats (compared to Indian Railways) on the Singapore Express. According to Malaysia Traveller (https://www.malaysia-traveller.com) “Taking the Kuala Lumpur to Singapore train can be an adventurous experience for rail travel enthusiasts and a cheap way to travel from KL to Singapore”. However, there are some drawbacks:

* The journey is very long and slow: over 7 hours and, depending on which train you catch, much of it at night.

* The trip across the Causeway from Johor Bahru to Woodlands Singapore together with the two customs and immigration stops adds to the journey time and can be frustratingly slow and tedious.

* The train itself is fiercely air-conditioned and uncomfortably cold.

* Facilities on the train are basic.

“A metre-gauge railway with daily scheduled trains and cheap fares links Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, the ideal way for independent travellers. It's safe, comfortable way to go and unlike flying, it's a real experience, and relaxing on a train is far more civilised than a cramped bus on an ugly motorway”, says The Man in Seat 61 (https://www.seat61.com).

We had modern conveniences such as leg room, reclining seats and intact windows! Due to a hiccup in the seat allocation system, I was half a carriage away from George and had a double seat to myself. I read “The Plot” and dozed as we rumbled through the undulating heavily wooded countryside.

The trees were mainly deciduous, but there were trees with trunks like elongated pineapples with a thatch of shredded palm-like leaves or fronds. Research today reveals: The oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis jacq.) originates from West Africa where it grows in the wild and later was developed into an agricultural crop. It was introduced to Malaysia, then Malaya, by the British in early 1870’s as an ornamental plant.

In 1917, the first commercial planting took place in Tennamaran Estate in Selangor, laying the foundations for the vast oil palm plantations and the palm oil industry in Malaysia. The cultivation of oil palm increased at a fast pace in early 1960s under the government’s agricultural diversification programme, which was introduced to reduce the country’s economic dependence on rubber and tin.

Later in the 1960s, the government introduced land settlement schemes for planting oil palm as a means to eradicate poverty for the landless farmers and smallholders. The oil palm plantations in Malaysia are largely based on the estate management system and smallholder scheme.

It’s hard to find anything on the shelves that doesn’t contain palm oil – it’s in about half of all supermarket products. Palm oil is amazingly versatile, which is why it’s become so popular. It’s an ingredient in food like biscuits and chocolate, as well as shampoo, lipstick, soaps, toothpaste, detergents and even ice cream.

To meet this demand, a huge industry has developed. Oil palms are grown in many tropical countries, including Malaysia. But today palm oil has been and continues to be a major driver of deforestation of some of the world's most biodiverse forests, destroying the habitat of already endangered species like the Orangutan, pygmy elephant and Sumatran rhino.

Wooden huts with corrugated iron roofs lined the track like farmstead buildings of old America. We breezed through Malaysian Immigration on the train and were given forms to fill in for Singapore. This proved to be a challenging task on the jostling train.

We crossed the bridge (The Johor–Singapore Causeway (Malay: Tambak Johor–Singapura) is a 1,056-metre causeway that links the city of Johor Bahru in Malaysia across the Straits of Johor to the town of Woodlands in Singapore. It serves as a road and rail link, as well as a water pipeline between the two countries.) onto Singapore and reached the city bang on schedule at 14:00 hrs.

We quickly cleared Customs and Immigration and went to the Money Changer Booth. We were appalled to find that the rate was 2.95 Singapore Dollars to £1 Sterling. When George was last here it was over S$4.

The Railway Station restaurant had just closed so we had lunch in a covered collection of food stalls next door. Our next destination was the Singapore YMCA which we had used as a Post Restante address for mail from home. We slogged across to the bus stand and were redirected to a bus stop down the road where we caught the number 10 bus to Katong Park.

Katong Park is neighbourhood park located in Katong, Singapore at the junction of Meyer Road and Fort Road. Built in the 1930s above the buried remains of Fort Tanjong Katong, it was one of Singapore’s oldest parks with the first public bathing pagar (sea swimming enclosure) and was highly popular with families during the weekends.

Here we got our first shock, like a bucket of cold water thrown over a copulating couple! The YMCA at 3 Meyer Place was now an empty plot of grass with only a few rusty posts to indicate where the building had been torn from the face of the earth.

We enlisted the aid of a cheeky young Singapore girl in a nearby hotel to locate YMCA Headquarters and boarded another bus back into the city centre. We weaved between the towering building sites and cranes and located the site destined to be the new YMCA Headquarters.

They had a temporary office in a school up the road, so we lugged our bags there in an effort to track down our redirected mail. Two giggling lads rang around the other Singapore YMCAs while an elderly clown assured us that the last he’d heard the Katong YMCA was still intact and fully functioning. This must have been in 1960! No luck however and we left without our anticipated morale boost with the hope that the General Post Office could be more enlightening tomorrow.

Next on the agenda was accommodation so we set off along Bencoolen Street. Bencoolen Street is a street in Central, Singapore that starts at the junction of Rochor Road, Rochor Canal Road and Jalan Besar and ends at the junction of Fort Canning Road, Stamford Road and Orchard Road.

The street houses several landmarks including Sim Lim Square, Bencoolen Mosque and Albert Complex. A number of hotels and serviced apartments exist there. It is accessible via Bencoolen MRT station which is located under Bencoolen Street itself.

We were quickly picked up by a hotelier who assured us that if we had a S$28 double room tonight then we could move into the S$5 dormitory tomorrow. We took up his offer and moved in. We gladly dumped our bags and shed our “respectable” clothes in favour of shorts and thongs (flip flops).

We went out and browsed in a mammoth bookshop and I bought a copy of the British fashion magazine “The Face” (S$4.50) to catch up on what the latest trends were in music, clothes and the cinema at home were.

We went to another covered café collective and had mutton and rice. Building work was still in full swing as if the constantly changing face of Singapore had to be maintained at all costs. It is said that you can tell the wealth of a nation and the state of development by the number of cranes working. Singapore must have had nearly all of the world’s cranes beavering away.

A few delicious pineapple juices later we drifted down to the waterfront for a coffee. We had to share a table with a moon-eyed couple who were gazing lovingly at each other as the ate from the same dish, so we left them to it and sought out the local McDonalds branch.

In here there was a bit more privacy and familiar disco records piped into the background. The local youth posed in their Western clothes and behaviour. I found Singapore disappointing, very different from my romantic pre-conceived notions of an exotic oriental destination, with all it’s modern shopping malls and sterile skyscrapers. They say that you could eat your dinner off the platform in Singapore’s MRT (mass rapid transit) system as it was so clean (but this is a good thing). There were also hefty fines for littering, and you could get arrested for it.

It was all so modern with only a few scruffy old local shops remaining. All the character of the old city had been swept away by the broom of progress. We slept the night on a huge spongy mattress on loosely sprung beds, so it was like sleeping in a hammock!

Raja Gopuram

Wednesday 4th January 1984

After an uncomfortable and sweaty night for both of us, we got out of bed at 10:00 hrs. and had breakfast in the YMCA restaurant. At M$4 for fixed breakfast it was much more expensive than what we were used to paying, but the food is hygienically prepared and Western in nature.

We set out to book our train tickets to Singapore for tomorrow, and this was accomplished in a trice (unlike Indian experiences). M$15.50 for a seat on the 07:30 hrs. express train. We then bought some postcards and set off in search of the Post Office. The Lonely Planet map was over-simplified and outdated, and as new flyovers and building were being erected as you looked at them, it was quite confusing.

We overshot but found it eventually, housed in a mammoth new stark white building. We found the Stamp Vending Counter after a round-the-houses tour of the internal stories and offices, bought postage stamps and settled in the sterile, air-conditioned Post Office Restaurant on the third floor.

We sipped Milo (Milo is a chocolate and malt powder typically mixed with hot water or milk (or both) to produce a beverage popular in Oceania, South America, Southeast Asia and parts of Africa. Produced by Nestlé, Milo was originally developed in Australia by Thomas Mayne in 1934.) and wrote our postcards before searching the long bank of letter boxes for the overseas one.

Our next goal was the Tourist Information Office, but this had shut up shop and moved. To no avail I also tried to change my Iranian currency in the towering international banks. These were vast impersonal skyscrapers with lifts and computers, and it took several minutes to discover which floor the international exchange department was on.

We ate pineapple chunks which we purchased from a street vendor and browsed around several music stalls. George was ecstatic when he spotted the new Bob Dylan LP “Infidels”. At 14:00 hrs. we discovered a street café and got a noodle and spicy seafood dish. It was marvellous and cheap at M$1.30. We gave the chopsticks a miss and used a spoon to eat it.

Many of the shop signs were in Chinese characters and the Chinese influence could be seen mixed with Western ideas in clothes and architecture. The street café was protected from the sun by coloured umbrellas and several podgy cooks ladled weird and wonderful ingredients into bowls for serving.

Many Malays seem to have pockmarked skin from acne or something. Girls were often over made up and clung to each other’s arms as they wandered about giggling. We had already seen the Masjid Jame, a traditional mosque at a fork in the muddy river that flows through Kuala Lumpar, but it was overshadowed by the surrounding skyscrapers and appeared to be under renovation.

The Masjid Jamek Mosque, also known as Friday Mosque, is recognised as the oldest Islamic place of worship in Kuala Lumpur. Overlooking the Klang River, it has a combination of ancient Moorish, Islam and Mughal architectural styles, verdant surroundings, and distant views of KL’s other iconic landmarks.

Built in 1907 by British architect Arthur Benison Hubback, Masjid Jamek Mosque served as the main centre of worship for the local Muslim community until the Masjid Negara (National Mosque) was officially opened to the public in 1965. Surrounding the main prayer hall are three domes, the tallest of which measures at 20 metres, flanked by two brick minarets that stand over 25 metres tall.

We also saw The National Mosque of Malaysia (Malay: Masjid Negara Malaysia, مسجد نݢارا مليسيا) which is a mosque in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It has a capacity for 15,000 people and is situated among 13 acres (53,000 square metres) of gardens. Its key features are a 73-metre-high (240 foot) minaret and a 16-pointed star concrete main roof.

The umbrella, synonymous with the tropics, is featured conspicuously – the main roof is reminiscent of an open umbrella, the minaret's cap a folded one. The folded plates of the concrete main roof are a creative solution to achieving the larger spans required in the main gathering hall. Reflecting pools and fountains spread throughout the compound.

Completed in 1965, the mosque is a bold and modern approach in reinforced concrete, symbolic of the aspirations of a then newly independent nation. We noted that it was a fancy new building that looked more like a school or library with an arty tower out front. Neither of the two mosques appeared to be that well patronised although Islam was deemed the national religion of Malaysia. Money seemed to be the new religion!

Kuala Lumpar means “muddy river mouth” and owes it’s rapid growth to local tin deposits. We passed another ornate temple in the back streets which tapered upwards with ornate carven layers. I assumed it to be Hindu as it sported two stone cows on either side.

This would have been the Sri Mahamariamman Temple which is the oldest Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Founded in 1873, it is situated at edge of Chinatown in Jalan Bandar (formerly High Street). In 1968, a new structure was built, featuring the ornate 'Raja Gopuram' tower in the style of South Indian temples. From its inception, the temple provided an important place of worship for early Indian immigrants and is now an important cultural and national heritage.

We browsed around the hi-fi and electronic gadgetry shops as well. In fact, almost everything that you could think of was on sale somewhere in this vibrant city. Buildings and flyovers were being rapidly erected by industrious workers and hordes of low engine capacity Japanese motorcycles buzzed about on the busy roads.

We got back to the YMCA at 16:30 hrs. and went up to our room with a carton of lychee juice. We read our books and 3 hours flitted passed unnoticed before we realised that it was 19:30 hrs. We left the YMCA block and put away a sweet and sour fish dish at a pavement restaurant opposite. We finished with a glass of Chinese tea which looked like beer but tasted like hot river water.

We then wandered into town, taking advantage of the many stalls selling exotic fruits chopped into cubes and packed in plastic bags to be taken away and eaten with an oversize cocktail stick. We had a pineapple puree drink near where the Lonely Planet “South East Asia on a Shoestring” book said there was a thriving evening market. There wasn’t.

On our continuing search for nightlife, I spotted the well-known McDonalds golden arches M sign and without further ado we steamed into the restaurant. We were soon ensconced in a table compartment facing a Big Mac and a cup of their familiar bitter coffee.

We chortled with glee as the uniformity of these establishments gave us a taste of home. We could have been in Hounslow High Street in West London were it not for the oriental faces and the gibberish below the English on the menu.

On the British sitcom “Birds of a Feather” when sisters Tracey and Sharon go to America they exclaim “Great, they have English food”, as they pass McDonalds, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken on the bus from the airport.

We felt that we were in civilization again and the trip was over. Thoroughly cheered we returned to the hostel via the impersonal road system with it’s over-and-under loops and harsh lights, geared up for traffic rather than pedestrians.

We indulged in a large bag of pineapple chunks and chomped the down before showering and turning in for the night.

Kuala Lumpur

Tuesday 3rd January 1984

I awoke at about 04:00 hrs., probable due to nervous excitement about our coming flight, but we didn’t get up until 07:00 hrs. I had a shower, but George was feeling rough, and he looked it. We packed our gear and crossed the road to the ornate red and white domed Egmore Railway Station.

We paid 1.60 Indian Rupees fare and took the commuter train to a station with a funny long name (probably Meenambakkam which is a southern neighbourhood of Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is home to Chennai International Airport and the Airports Authority of India regional office. It was under the reign of the Pallava kingdom).

After a short walk we found the International Departure Lounge and settled by the café. George slumped forward with his head in his hands and neglected his cup of tea. I hoped that he was not seriously ill.

I went to check that we were on the passenger list for the flight to Kuala Lumpar and a horrible suspicion was realised. Somewhere along the line there had been a cock up and we were neither listed as passengers or on the waiting list. I went into the airline office and after much quibbling I was told to come back at 11:00 hrs. I returned with George and he ranted and raved about his wife waiting to meet him in Kuala Lumpar (he was not married at this time) and eventually we got a place on the aeroplane.

We breezed through Immigration and Customs and boarded the plane, ushered through the back door by the top man and woman from the Malaysian Airlines System Office. Our flight was MH31 on an Airbus 3000. The flight was luxurious with a good in-flight meal, personal radio, comfy seats and a high standard of cleanliness (that we had become unaccustomed to).

Piped music accompanied our run into Kuala Lumpar Airport, which was very modern and efficient. We soon passed through immigration and a large skull and crossbones poster warning “The Penalty for Drug Smuggling is Death” which made us fear that someone could have hidden drugs in our luggage, but we had nothing to fear. We passed through baggage retrieval and Customs.

The airport impressed us with all the latest digital signs, escalators and VDU terminals to keep everything running smoothly and even money changing was done in a trice. £1 Sterling was the equivalent of 3.3290 Malaysian dollars.

Kuala Lumpur, officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur (Malay: Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur) and colloquially referred to as KL, is a federal territory and the capital city of Malaysia. It is the largest city in Malaysia, covering an area of 243 kilometres (94 square miles). We arrived at 18:30 hrs. local time and the temperature was 30°C.

I have always liked the look of East Asian people and all the Malaysians looked honest and friendly. Many of the girls were beautiful with their gaily patterned tailored jackets and long skirts. We had a coffee in the Airport Café and were appalled at the cost, nearly 2 Malaysian Dollars per cup.

A long wait ensued for the bus and George was still feeling the worse for wear. It is a feature of “civilized” countries that the emphasis is on private rather than public transport. I felt excited to be in a new country despite my complaints about the bus service.

It cost us 95 cents to travel from the airport to Kuala Lumpar Railway Station. Completed in 1910 to replace an older station on the same site, the station was Kuala Lumpur's railway hub in the city for the Federated Malay States Railways and its successor Keretapi Tanah Melayu (English: Malayan Railways).

The bus journey was disquietingly like that along the Great West Road from Heathrow Airport in West London. The well-lit dual carriageway passed warehouses and industrial estates. We passed one familiar name, The Guinness Building. A gradual build-up of illuminated signs and premises signalled that we were nearing the city centre and we soon reached the impressive Railway Station with its arches, spires and Moorish design.

From here we found our way to the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). The YMCA was expensive after what we were used to paying in India, but the rooms were excellent. We paid M$2 for temporary YMCA membership and M$20 for a double room which was clean and simple, but roomy and equipped with all you needed for everyday living.

The building also sported a sports centre offering a wide range of activities and a cafeteria. We changed into shorts to sound of ballroom dancing music, but then decided not to go out and hit the sack (to go to bed).

Madras

Monday 2nd January 1984

I awoke to the raucous cries of the tea and coffee vendors at a station. I slept well but no matter which way you lay on the wooden benches a bony part of your anatomy would give you gip and cause discomfort, usually your pelvis.

The day passed pleasantly as the train remained fairly empty. We passed through Madurai, which is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and Trichy. Tiruchirappalli (formerly Trichinopoly in English), also called Tiruchi or Trichy, is a major tier II city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Tiruchirappalli district.

I finished reading “Christine” and the Flashman book. “Christine” was excellent. I then embarked on “The Plot” by Irvine Wallace. Billed as one of his best books, initially, the reader is drawn into a journalist's investigation which reveals a plot into the killing of JFK in 1963 in Dallas, Texas. But as the story develops 7 people are drawn into the plot culminating in an explosive climax at a global summit in Paris. It was first published 3rd March 1967.

We fed on snacks at the stations, mainly eggs and bananas, and at 13:30 hrs. we got an on-board train meal for 4.50 Indian Rupees. This was the usual bowl of rice and half a dozen pots of various vegetable concoctions and curd.

The woman, who remained unconvinced that we were not students, and her two girls got off at 13:30 hrs. and we had the compartment to ourselves. Occasionally the odd Indian would join us for a while to “black his nose” (be nosey).

I freshened up by cleaning my teeth and a shave as we neared Madras. We passed through a multitude of stations that resembled surface London Underground stations, such as Acton Town, and we eventually arrived at Madras Egmore Railway Station.

Chennai Egmore (formerly known as Madras Egmore) (station code: MS) is a railway station in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Situated in the neighbourhood of Egmore, it is one of the four intercity railway terminals in the city of Madras.

The building built in Gothic style with imposing domes and corridors is one of the prominent landmarks of Chennai. The main entrance to the station is situated on Gandhi-Irwin Road and the rear entrance on Poonamallee High Road.

Chennai is also known as Madras (the official name until 1996) and is the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal, it is one of the largest cultural, economic and educational centres of South India.

The area that we had passed through on the train during the day was predominantly rural with plenty of paddy fields and rows of trees that gave the landscape a European air. The people seemed much richer in the Southern states of India, well dressed in Western garb, comfortably fed and looking healthy.

We continued to resist the pleas of the inevitable beggar or two at each station that we had stopped at. After a bit of buggering about because all of the hotels opposite the railway station were full, we got a good single room in the Chandra Lodge for 44.10 Indian Rupees.

Once booked in we set out for a celebratory splurge meal at the New Victoria Hotel, which we had visited earlier but rejected as 174 Indian Rupees for a double room was extortionate, even though we had Indian currency to dispense of before we left the country tomorrow.

We demolished a full tandoori chicken and vegetable fried rice. It was quite tasty, but the chickens were scrawny specimens (nobody in India wanted to kill a chicken for meat when it was still capable of laying eggs!) and we left feeling cheated and both of us 50 Indian Rupees lighter.

Every time we had gone to a fancy expensive restaurant or hotel on this trip we had always left feeling robbed, as we were well aware of the cost of food on the streets, and we felt out of place in such places.

We confirmed that the airport tax was 100 Indian Rupees and found out that a commuter train left for the airport every ten minutes. The fare tailored to Indian workers and was less than 2 Indian Rupees so it was much cheaper than the 12 Indian Rupee cost of the Airport Bus which was geared up for tourists.

We found a local restaurant for coffee and a more relaxed atmosphere and George bought a new log book to continue to record our daily escapades. We took a walk to the harbour at 22:00 hrs. and our impression of Madras from this short sortie was that there was little of interest to be seen. It was just an industrious working city. There were an unusually high number of people sleeping on the pavements and the stink of piss and shit was almost overpowering in many places.

The only place that showed any signs of life was at Madras Central Station where I posted my aerogrammes. A painted sign on the letterbox announced that letters posted after 17 hrs. should bear an extra 20 Paise for a late postage fee. I ignored this absurd idea and posted them regardless.

We were pestered by a few cycle rickshaws and several beggars, who all got short shrift from us as we were tired and irritable. We had a couple of delicious grape juices before returning to our hotel room at midnight.

George had the single bed and I slept on the floor, but a foam mattress made for a comfortable bed. George stank the bog (toilet) out with a horrendous shit, and we slumped exhausted into bed with the ceiling fan whirring at slow speed.

Sweeta

Sunday 1st January 1984

Woke up feeling wretched and took my anti-malaria pill with hot lemon which George fetched from the Shangri-La. The Aussie shanters (alcoholic drinkers, a shant being Britain, slang meaning a drink, usually a pint) emerged from their drinking den and wished us “Happy New Year”. I had another hot lemon and then threw up.

I was beginning to get a bit suspicious about my anti-malaria pills (Maloprim) as I always seemed to feel a bit rough after taking them. Perhaps they don’t agree with me. I took one of Georges pills as I wasn’t sure how much of mine had been adsorbed before I vomited.

We cleared out our room and left our bags in the Shangri-La storeroom to spend a melancholy morning on the beach. We sat in the Velvet Dawn Café and contemplated flying home to the U.K. from Singapore. This was a tempting idea at this moment.

A cringe-making family sprawled on the beach before us, resplendent in straw “Kiss Me Quick” hats. Sarong-clad macho’s strolled along the sand with perving local men as girls stripped off for a day’s serious sunbathing.

It was 20:00 hrs. and another murderous train trip was behind us. One and a half hours of purgatory from Trivandrum to Quilon. Packed solid in the carriage, standing like sardines in a tin by the stinking latrine. Nothing for it but to keep your sense of humour and try not to break down.

We had bid a sad farewell to Ambi and Chitwan at about 13:00 hrs. The Sergeant was also there to see us off from Kovalum and, as usual, he looked half-cut (drunk). “Goodbye Mr George, Goodbye Mr Steve”, he said shaking our hands. “Tell your friends Sergeant is cheap”.

We took our leave and trudged up to the bus stop. I felt light-headed and decidedly ill so the packed bus trip to Trivandrum was far from fun. I seemed to be a source of amusement for the local passengers because I was sweating like a pig.

At 15:15 hrs. in Trivandrum we went into the cinema to kill 2 hours watching “Herbie Goes Bananas”. It was a pretty banal film but had some good characterisation, especially the sadistic Ships Captain.

“Herbie Goes Bananas” is a 1980 American comedy adventure film and the fourth installment of The Love Bug film series made by Walt Disney Productions starring Herbie – the white Volkswagen racing Beetle with a mind of its own.

“Herbie Goes Bananas” has some nice location cinematography in the Panama Canal, Tijuana, and Guadalajara in Mexico. And it has two good scenes with Herbie walking the plank as per Captain Korman's orders and later on in a corrida facing a bull with Leachman and Korman inside.

In the Railway Station we had a pretty good all-in vegetarian meal for 4 Indian Rupees and sat by a fruit vendor’s hut to await the train. Dangling on the side of the hut was a length of smouldering sisal which people used to light their fags (cigarettes).

At least the railway stations in Kerala are clean, modern and efficiently run. Cheered up after the hideous journey with a couple of Sweeta’s, another Coca Cola rip-off with a fruity taste. “Be sweeter with Sweeta”, was the logo on the bottle!

On the train it is great fun at stations. People fighting to get on while others battle to get off and nobody giving an inch. An old lady who had decided to sit on the floor was trodden underfoot despite her protests.

We would be travelling on the British-made historic Quilon-Madras Mail railway route, covering a distance of 454 miles. The Madras - Quilon Mail, which started running in 1904, was one of the oldest trains in Indian Railways. In order to transport spices and condiments including black pepper, cashew, cloves and cardamom from the capital of erstwhile Travencore State, Quilon to Madras, the South Indian Railway Company had opened the Quilon - Sengottai line in 1902. This was the first line in Travencore State.

We boarded the train for Madras at Platform 3 after I had finished a packet of mouth-desiccating Kwality Marie biscuits (A Marie biscuit is a type of biscuit similar to a rich tea biscuit).

Our names and berth numbers were pasted to the side of the carriage along with our age and sex. Apparently, there were seats in one half of the carriage and bunks cum seats in the other half. Consequently, we had a barney with the occupants of seats 5 and 6 before we eventually found our bunks numbered 5 and 6. To "have a barney" is a phrase commonly used in London which means to become involved in an argument or fight.

We shared our compartment with a tall, pleasant well-educated woman with her two daughters who spoke English well. We settled down on our wooden shelves and read our books for a little while. We’d soon got back into a travelling frame of mind and were fairly relaxed. Our “holiday” at Kovalum was already a pleasant memory.