This article appeared
in Volume 20: No. 3 of the Orient
Express magazine.
All aboard for Asia
Ten years on, HRH Princess Michael of Kent remembers the sights
and sounds that made the inaugural journey of the E&O so special.
It is an astonishing 10 years since we travelled on the inaugural
journey of the Eastern & Oriental Express from Singapore to Bangkok.
So many wonderful memories crowd my mind of that remarkable train
trip.
We had arrived in Singapore a day early and found ourselves with
a daunting range of things to do. Having a fondness for animals,
we opted to visit the world-famous zoo. At that time, Singapore did
not yet have the magical Night Safari, which I have subsequently
experienced, whereby visitors are able to observe the animals from
an open tram, as they roam the grounds and feed by artificial moonlight.
But the birds were every inch as remarkable as we had been told.
Outside the aviaries, the trees swarmed with chattering green-and-red
lovebirds: just like us, they were tourists visiting their caged
relations. I was totally charmed and instantly set about making arrangements
to take a pair back to my home in Gloucestershire. Unfortunately,
I was dissuaded from doing so at the time, so I then determined to
get some when I returned. And I did. Their merry chirping in our
country kitchen has given us cheerful company for the past 10 years.
The following day we set off for the station to join the train and
found the platform alive with an evening carnival—drums and
dancers, fire-eaters and snake-charmers, men with birds in cages
and others perched on their shoulders, and jugglers offering edibles
on sticks dipped into peanut or coconut sauce.
We were joined by a number of tigers—the symbol of the Eastern & Oriental
Express—that were on loan from a local circus, to bring good
luck to the adventure. Suddenly a shout went up and we saw that a
poisonous snake had escaped. It slithered with astonishing speed
towards a cage of birds. Pandemonium ensued as people shrieked and
charmers fell over one another in their attempts to grab the serpent’s
tail. Only warily did we venture back on to the platform, where
the party continued until the departure whistle blew.
Familiar with the tradition on the original Orient-Express train
in Europe, we changed to black tie for cocktails and dinner. The
menu was superb, as was the wine; conversation flowed and the piano
tinkled on late into the night. As we contemplated a sound night’s
sleep, it was suggested we might care to watch the sun rise the next
morning from the observation car. The idea met with willing spirits—but
how would we feel when the moment came to get out of bed?
Determined to enjoy every minute of our journey, we abandoned the
comfort of our air-conditioned compartment, when the knock came,
to join a handful of stalwarts in the early morning damp in the open
carriage at the end of the train. We were met by a sight I will never
forget and will forever cherish. On a single-gauge track hidden just
below the surface of the water, the train had begun to cross an enormous
lake the colour of the sky. It was a dusty grey-blue dashed here
and there with pink—just like a Monet morning. Gazing out from
the open-sided carriage we saw nothing to deny we were floating on
the water.
Some years later I would take a cruise aboard the Road To Mandalay
ship along the Ayeyarwady River in Myanmar (Burma) between Pagan
and Mandalay, where, as Kipling’s poem goes, “the dawn
comes up like thunder”. In Malaysia, though, the sun slipped
serenely skywards over the lip of the lake and hovered, smiling.
Our train eventually left the lake and entered the rainforests; the
scent of breakfast cooking over the workers’ camp fires reminded
us to seek out our own.
This was not my first visit to Singapore, or to Bangkok—our
final destination—but I had previously only flown to both cities,
and never experienced the countryside. As the train chugged lazily
through dense rubber plantations, we saw buckets attached to trees
oozing white latex, which were occasionally being tended, turned
or emptied. Into the bright sunlight again and through another forest—this
time, of white-painted, tiered pagodas, no taller than an average
man. The flat, green landscape was dotted with hundreds of them,
around 10 or 12ft apart, like an army of silent devotion.
Many of the guests on board were old friends, others became new
ones and our countless adventures flashed by all too quickly. A film
was made of our progress, and later, when it was shown on television,
we relived our romantic journey. And, in my kitchen, my lovebirds
have always been there to remind me—until the other day when
I sat down to write this article and one of them, heartbreakingly,
died. I took his corpse to our vet, who could not believe his age.
He told me that lovebirds only live for five or six years, and yet
my trip aboard the train was 10 years ago. Was it good care that
enabled the bird to live so long—or did nobody dare tell me
when old age had claimed the original ones?
I still have one bird enlivening my kitchen, just as my wonderful
memories of the inaugural trip on the Eastern & Oriental Express
live on.
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