SeaDemon Says

I then went to the Buffet Car. It is a far cry from what it used to be more than a quarter of a century ago. I remember how each train’s buffet car is operated by a different operator; and on one particular mail train southbound from Butterworth is operated by this chinese husband and wife. Everything was hawker style – mee hailam, mee goreng, cantonese mee, mee hoon, kuey teow, cantonese fried rice etc etc. The car would be filled to the brim with people from the 3rd class coaches who refuse to make that 10-car journey back to their respective seats.

It’s totally different now. The seats are modern and more comfortable…not those wooden benches and barstools of the yesteryears. The buffet cars are all operated by a single company…and the cooks are non-Malaysian (mostly Bangladeshis).

But to my surprise, the buffet car was empty at lunch time. Maybe the cost of food and drink’s gone up.

Although the nostalgia of the smell of oyster and soy sauces, mixed with fried garlic is no longer there, the romance of being in a buffet car is still the same. I bought me a cup of Maggi (Curry flavour) and a drink packet, and just sat there watching the alternating sceneries, camera in hand.

I remember walking back to my seat more than 2 years ago; sometimes we would hang out in between coaches, or sometimes we’d just sit by the steps. Those who smoked, would smoked then. But the smell of diesel fumes emitted by the locomotive…priceless.

Walking back to my coach this time was through a dark passageway, uninteresting and dull.

Finally, I saw signs of civilisation as we passed Kulai. I sent a text message to Wifey informing her that I was half an hour away from JB.

Many of you would question my decision to take a train ride down to JB. A drive would take me 3-hours the most. But Wifey drove down the day before, so taking another car down seemed absurd. Flight? It would take me an hour plus to get to the airport, and if I were to take any of those low-cost carriers, I would have to be there two hours before. The flight would take close to an hour, and then spend another hour getting to the hotel (after taxiing to the apron and parking the aircraft). That would have been 5 hours.

Buses? You will never catch me on a bus ever again. I have had bad experiences being on those fast coffins. And my last trip by an express bus going to JB took me almost 8 hours. The driver exited the highway at Tangkak, and we followed the old trunk road all the way, and made lots of stops too.

On the train, I had a much needed sleep; I was very relaxed, and I got to reminisce about the old days when life was so much simpler.

I should take another train ride, sit back and relax…

What was to be a short nap, turned out into a full-blown three-hour sleep. The tension at work, coupled with the travel and visit to the oil rig, operations report, editing marketing report, going through figures determining IRRs, and hunting for interim vessels for jobs must have gotten to me. When I got up, we were already at Gemas. And because I was in a deep sleep, the ticket inspector could not wake me up to inspect my ticket. When he saw that I was already up, he immediately asked for mine.

TAK TAK TAK TAK TAK TAK TAK

The ticket inspector would make that staccato on the headrest with his single-hole puncher.

“Tiket! Tiket!” (Ticket! Ticket!)

This 40-something malay ticket inspector with the most unfriendly face asked me for my train ticket. I was travelling back to Kuala Kangsar with my friends that afternoon.

Ticket Inspector: “Adik punya dah potong ke?” (Has yours been cut? – what he meant was: have I had my ticket inspected)

I looked down at my crotch and replied, “Mesti la dah potong. Umur dah 17 tahun dah.” (Of course mine has been cut-off. I’m already 17 – I was referring to my foreskin)

He looked strangely at me, puzzled initially, then gave out this stupid laughter and went off.

A jolt by the coach as the train took a corner brought me back to the present. There was this ticket inspector, Indian, in a friendlier-looking uniform, with a friendly smile, still waiting for my ticket. I smiled back at him and handed my ticket to him.

I looked out the window, and saw a row of rubber trees in a plantation. My thoughts were then returned to that same train ride I was on 26 years ago.

“Your country is amazing. Even the trees in the jungle are in lines.”

I nodded at this foreigner, a backpacker who was with his girlfriend, I presumed. I wanted to laugh, but kept on a straight face.

“Those are rubber trees, you plonk!” I thought to myself.

26 years on, the view is still very much the same, save for some pockets of development, both legal and illegal, on both sides of the track. Somehow, I miss those days, my salad days – so carefree and the only responsibility I had was to pass my exams and not get scolded (the least) whenever I had to shove my report card beneath my father’s nose for it to be signed on the penultimate day of each school holidays. Those were the days when all we had to do was wake up in the morning, go for classes, go for meals, go for the daily swimming and water-polo training, go for prep, and sleep…or at least, pretend to sleep. Then, later at night, sneak out of the dormitory doing everything and nothing in Kuala Kangsar town, get chased by cops patrolling in Land Rovers, and jump into the Perak river to escape them.

Suddenly, I felt the urge to go to the toilet. Someone was in the sitting toilet, therefore I had to use the squat toilet. Since I was only going to urinate, I only had to stand. It is already a challenge trying to aim into a normal toilet bowl; imagine doing the deed, the bowl opening just half the size of a normal squat toilet, in a moving train. You can imagine how good my aim was…NOT. The difference 26 years later is that although the toilet did not look clean, it smelled clean!

To be continued…