Our day trip on the North Borneo Railway was like being surprised with a Corn Popsicle for dessert - a long anticipated treat that when you opened it up, not knowing what it was really going to be, it turned out to taste like shit.
What did taste good was breakfast. Alex and I took Matt to an authentic Indian breakfast - masala dosa and chai tea. Delicious!
I'd found out about the North Borneo Railway experience through books and online reviews over a year ago. Everything painted the experience as a high end nostalgic journey aboard an historic steam train through the lush jungles of Borneo. It was not cheap for Southeast Asian half day trip standards - a journey from 10:00am to 1:30pm that included a small breakfast and tiffin lunch was about $400 per family - but it seemed like a unique experience that we would enjoy.
We arrived at 9am and got settled. The checkin process was neat - a staff member dressed in colonial garb issued everyone a little passport and they stamped the first page.
We got to our assigned seats - little booths for each pair of passengers. The whole feel of the train was very authentic and we were impressed. The kids settled in to cards while the adults went outside and took some pictures of the train.
The train cars were of Japanese design and built in the 60's. The wood powered steam engine was also from the 60's and was one of the last of its kind ever made.
We were supposed to leave at 10:00am and have a light breakfast as we left. By 10:30 we still hadn't budged, with no sign of the steam engine that was supposed to be on the front of our train. Hmm.... No communication from the staff, so Alex asked someone. No response. Finally, at 10:45, someone came by and told us they were having some problems with the engine but that we would be leaving at 11:00am ("sorry for the inconvenience" - I added that part). At around 11:00, we saw the steam engine slowly making its way, backing up to the front of our train. We finally got underway at 11:15 - then they served us "breakfast".
I'd asked the head guy, an older Malay, what the problem with the engine was - he said that because of the rain, the wood for the engine had gotten wet, and that they were also using newer wood (filling in the blanks - new and/or wet wood meant lower burn temperature and not enough steam produced to get the desired PSI up to 150 for the engine to run with enough power to pull the train). I was a little incredulous when the guy gave me that explanation - they'd been running this train since 2000 and they actually let the wood for the engine get wet? I'm pretty sure yesterday was not the first time it had rained since then..... Argh.
Breakfast was ok, though after one bite of a curry puff, I lost my appetite. My stomach was not feeling good, and I was starting to feel a little hot (under the collar and in the head!). It was a bit odd that given the delay they still stuck with serving breakfast after departure.... But as Alex later said, they seemed to just follow procedures step by step in chronological order like robots. Blame the programmer I guess!
We crawled along the track through the outskirts of KK. Now that we were moving, I started to feel the breeze in my face from the open windows - a bit of respite though I felt a fever coming on for sure. The kids seemed happy enough - cards and chatter galore. The adults all kind of settled in to chill and enjoy the scenery.... Though up to this point, there wasn't much more than semi developed industrial land to look at.
Eventually, we stopped at some town for a chance to walk around and take in some local culture. I chatted up a family of five from Japan that were sharing our cabin - man I miss Japan. The people, the food, THE TRAINS!! Very nice family. We walked around a "Buddhist" temple, that was really a Chinese Tao looking temple, then walked back to get to the train before our 20 minute deadline was up. I was dying to sit down. Maybe Robin and Abby lit incense for me...
Another delay - this time about 45 more minutes (with no communication from the staff) - before we set off again. The communication was so bad, Alex took it upon himself to walk over and climb into the engine and talk to the engineers themselves about the current PSI level - I love it. Alex the passenger informed us of the progress, then I translated to the Japanese family.
When Beth was in labour with Abby, her mom and I were with her in the labour room, waiting around between contractions and going for walks with her. I guess at one point Barb and I were talking about almonds while Beth was in the throws of a contraction:
"What kind almonds did you bring?"
"I have these salted ones. Sometimes I like the roasted almonds with wasabi powder"
"Oh yeah, those are good. Did you want to try these ones? They're really good"
"Mmmm... Those are good"
"I do love almonds"
Suddenly, Beth screamed "would you shut the f%$# up about the goddamn almonds!!!!". We still laugh about it, though only because enough time has passed... I now think I know how Beth felt, and it almost brought me to tears of laughter.
A tiffin lunch is a traditional Raj (ie. English/Indian) meal served in a set of metal bowls that snap neatly together into a portable lunchbox. They served the lunch after departing the first stop (you know, because that was the order of operations), and everybody received a tiffin. I had zero interest in food. I was in a bit of a feverish daze and could not imagine eating a thing. Now Alex, like me when well, is a foodie - he will try, and probably enjoy, almost anything. While my head was down and everyone was digging in, all I could hear was Alex chatting away about each thing in the multilayered lunch:
"Oh, this is a nice curry. A bit spicy but really nice. Matt, did you try the chicken? It's awesome. Look at these veggies, they're fantastic. Jeffrey, look at the dragonfruit. It's really fresh. Oh wow, this is really good" - I thought to myself "would you shut the f%$# up about the goddamn almonds!!!!" and I swear I started chuckling to myself and tears of laughter were welling up in my eyes. Coincidence or the power of healing through laughter (or Alex) but I felt my fever break and actually managed to eat some fruit. I still can't help chuckling when I think of that moment. Ridiculous but funny.
The "view" from the train got a little better as we were getting a little more rural, but at no point could we describe this "journey" as a jungle train. We crawled along and eventually made it to our halfway stop - the engine was to do a turnaround, hitch up to the other side of the train and bring us back.
The schedule was a 30 minute break to take a little walk and check out the central market in the little town. I opted to stand on the train platform while the other seven ventured about. I wanted to see the train turning and had little interest in a walk to the market.
Twenty minutes later the gang came back - "that sucked" was the general response. An hour later...me were still waiting on the platform. No information. No idea what was happening. I approached a group of 3 train employees who were just standing around chatting outside and asked them what was happening. They didn't know. I explained that they needed to set people's expectations - "oh, ok" was the response. Shortly after, I pulled another guy aside and asked what was going on and he said they are sending a bus to pick us up. I was starting to get really pissed off. Thank goodness for having the four kids to keep each pair of siblings company - they weren't too bothered with the delay...
I spoke to the guy in charge, and asked who we spoke to to get our refund. He said "oh sorry sir, we only give refunds if you fail to get a meal. Your journey is complete so there will be no refund." I explained that it didn't feel like the journey had been complete (seemed pretty obvious!) since we'd only reached the halfway point and we were supposed to ride the train back. Anyway, it went on and on... In the end, they made us wait another 30 minutes until we finally had enough steam to get the train moving and on its way back. I think they got spooked by all the people talking about refunds. It was like talking to a brick wall.
When we started rolling it was time to unveil the next step in the robotic train process - a refreshing frozen dessert (served hours after lunch). Sorbet? Ice cream? What could it be? They gave each of us a popsicle in a wrapper. I opened mine up and gave it a sniff.... Hmmm, it smelled a little like corn.... But there's no way... A small lick. Jesus Christ, a corn Popsicle. Are you kidding me? There were actual kernels of corn in a Popsicle. There you have - step 11: delicious frozen dessert.
We ended up getting in four hours late. It's lucky we didn't have other plans, or a plane to catch, like other passengers had. Beyond the extreme delays and terrible communication - there were obvious signs that this was not a top notch operation (they didn't bother stamping the passports after stop number one (we had to get the kids to ask on the way home), they did not service the washrooms or empty any garbage cans, they left garbage on the tray tables way too long, the view was just not there, etc etc etc). Basically the whole experience belies the reliability of sites like trip advisor. Too many people get rose coloured glasses and are sometimes afraid to rate things as just "good" as opposed to five out of fives for everything. My conclusion on the service levels are that they are just not told/allowed to think outside the box or to troubleshoot, and they certainly are not equipped to properly set expectations when things go wrong. Too bad.
This will go down in our memories as a day wasted in good company. We did manage a movie at night, which wasn't overly Fantastic, but hey, you roll with the punches when you travel. On a day like this, when tensions can get high, it really shows who you can travel with.... Travelling with the Versly clan is certainly smooth sailing for us.
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