Train tickets?

Why are the majority of the train systems in some of the worlds best cities so absolutely atrocious?

I truly don't understand what is going through the governments minds when they decide to have a subway or monorail system built. If it were me I would maybe look round at other systems, see what you think is good, and cherry pick all the best bits from all the existing citys' systems. But I think what actually happens is that they go for the first option on the list before reading the second one so they can still get out for a spot of lunch.

Lets take Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Tokyo as examples of fine cities which in my opinion have transport systems which were part of the dash for lunch decision making.

So buying a ticket in KL is all quite easy and automated, there are machines near the entrance gates where you can go and buy your ticket. Mind you, you can only buy one single ticket, not a day pass for example, so every time you wish to travel you must go and buy a ticket - maybe queueing up first to do so. Now that would be fine if it were not for the fabulous design of the operation of the machines. The first problem is that they must have taken all the old computers that people had thrown away in the 90s and are trying to power the flash touch screen machines, which gives a not dissimilar experience to watching a bear wake from its hibernation. The second wonderful little known and unusual rule (some of the regular users don't know this) is that you can only use one note in one transaction. It is important to think at this point of the currency situation in Malaysia and it's differences to the UK, in that it is possible to pay for a ticket in three notes if you like, rather than in the UK putting one note in and then getting change. So the one note rule means that you have to have quite a lot a change to get your ticket for just that journey. Of course you can get change from the man in a booth, but he can't sell you a ticket, he can only give change, so back in the queue you go! Add this to the fact that there are usually 50% of the machines with some error on the screen that won't go away - maybe they should put a little restart button for people to press?

Having successfully obtained your ticket, you encounter the fabulously designed flexible gate systems. The idea is great. You can enter the gates from either side, so allowing people who are coming off the trains to use all of the gates, especially as there are probably few people coming the other way. What is good fun tho is when people are coming the other way! You see it turns into a race into who can get their card into the machine first, blocking the other person from getting theirs in. So as the masses of people are mauling behind you, you have to make space for the person who has just beaten you to getting her ticket in first.

After you train journey, you would expect to be able to go where you decide? Yeah? No! This is where the fabulous Singapore system makes you go back to a ticket machine, just like the one you bought your ticket from to get the deposit that was originally included in the price of the card. So increasing the queues and the time necessary to complete a journey. Now you can get smart to this by keeping the card in your pocket until you go to buy your next ticket, and get the deposit back at the same time as you buy the new one, but invariably as you search through you pockets you realise your ticket is draped over the chair in the hotel room in the pair of shorts you wore the previous day.

So why are the systems so user obtrusive? I'm not even going to start on the fact that different lines don't link together in KL, Singapore or Tokyo, and invariably involve a 5 minute walk to the other line - plus the purchase of a new ticket for that train company.

Now I think that's enough on train tickets!

Singapore

Well, it's easy to live life on the edge in Singapore, so that's exactly what I did.

First I went J walking a few times, combined with crossing at some traffic lights when the green man wasn't on. Unknown to me I broke another rule when I got caught EATING! on the train, however I happily managed to avoid the 500 dollar fine... I didn't have the balls to drop some litter, or have a spit somewhere, I think it would have been too much of an adrenalin rush.

East Coast Malaysia

Pulau Perhentian - the beach outside my room

Kuala Lumpur

Tallest buildings in the world - The Petronas Towers

Moving South down Vietnam

The motorbikes that were to take us through the central highlands

So the bike ride. Well we arrived in Dalat which is the gateway to central highlands of Vietnam. It's up in the mountains, leading to the necessity of jeans and jumpers. The city is famous for honeymooners, and is the city of romance - being called le petit Paris, as there is also a small Eiffel tower. First of all we went to the Valley of Love, and generally laughed at all of the 'romantic' things they had on offer. It was a little like forced romance, and luckily we arrived just as it was closing on a damp and drizzly day, so we missed the romantic circus that would usually be there. There was however a lovely view over a valley, somehow overshadowed by being asked by 20 people to have our picture taken with them in the love heart overlooking the valley!
The next day we were off with the Easy Riders. These are a bunch of guys who will take you round the mountain areas on their bikes, and give you a chance to experience parts of the country which are usually inaccessible. Now why they are called Easy Riders I have no idea, because they are easily the fastest thing on the roads, and nothing about it is easy going like the name suggests. It's as though you are being chased by the police for the whole time, and they are desperate to get away. But because of their enthusiasm for breakneck speed, it did mean that we covered a lot of miles, and got to see a lot in the two and a bit days we were with them.

Introduction to the silk manufacture process

The journey was broken up by numerous little stops to see silk worms, cashew nut factories, coffee plantations, basket weavers, silk weaving, as well as visits to see the minorities and their traditional houses. This was a side to Vietnam that would have been difficult to see otherwise and also helped remove the 'Monkey Bum' that we were all getting from being on the bikes.

25 years of conflict was easy to see

Vietnamise Coffee - like drinking melted chocolate

A mahusive buddha

Jungle Beach

By luck more than anything, Matt and I decided to go off to a tiny little 'hotel' 60km north of Nah Trang for some beach action. It was idyllic.

Matt and I were told that there were photoluminescence plankton in the sea, so after dinner we slowly found our way in the dark to the beach and into the black water. As we slowly started making our way out into deeper water, these little flashes started appearing here and there. When we moved our legs and arms around under water it was like there were hundreds of little sparkling stars around us. You have to keep moving for them to light up, but it was the simultaneously most creepy and exciting thing. You can't see what is making the light, but there were hundreds of them! It was really really amazing! God knows what we much have looked like - dancing like crazy fools in the water!

The shakey starts and nervous cornering were later to be explained when she couldn't show her driving license to the police!

Vietnam - Halong Bay

Matt and I are off to Halong Bay for some beach and kayaking.... more to follow

Bangkok

Well, I really like BK! It's clean, civilised, the people are really friendly and funny too. I went walking round yesterday for miles, just following my nose and it was really good, although I did knacker myself out a bit. Starting at Th Koa San I went past the Royal Palace, past cos they wouldn't let me in with shorts on (but went back this morning wearing full scuba outfit) and then through Chinatown and onto the subway, which was very good, and then on the Skyway which has such a better name than Londons DLR. I would have liked to have looked at the view, but was more concerned that maybe I was going in the wrong direction, and the 'what stop did I need to get off at again' internal questions! So eventually I ended up in the business district which is how I expect a business district to be. Tall shiny buildings, nice green parks with benches and no-one sat on them, plenty of coffee shops and fast food joints and of course the flashy shops for all those rich people to get rid of their money. Please take note all those town planners in Delhi.

Then off to the big shopping malls of Siam. As you would expect it was pretty plush, with all the normal shops, Armarni, B&O etc, but also had show rooms for Ferrari, Lamborghini, Masterati, oh and BMW.... The Murcielago is the best thing, I never thought that a Ferarri would pale in comparision to any other car, but put next to each other, the lamorghini gets all the gazes. But what got me the most was the high tech stuff in the mall. In the lifts and shops there were holographic TVs. Now maybe they are out in the UK, but I haven't seen them. But if you haven't seen one before it's quite a weird sight, the product they are advertising actually comes out of the screen at you. There is still some work to do on the resolution of the image, but it really works. Wow! On the same theme they also had an Imax cinema, which I have only ever seen really odd films being shown, nothing that is in the normal line up. But they had Superman Returns, so hurridly off I went to get myself in the next show. I really enjoyed it, and I think that it is a real glimse of how the whole idea of watching something will be transformed.

Sri Lanka-ka-ka-ka

Being confined to the beach was a terrible thing

After a bit of luxury on the first night in swanky hotel, I bought an
overnight sleeper ticket to a city on the North East of the Island
renowned for its stunning beaches, snorkeling and diving. The ticket was surprisingly cheap, cheaper than India, which I thought was odd, but all was to be explained when I got on the train. Well the 'sleeper' bit of the ticket is obviously some kind of translation error. There aren't any beds, just seats, so there's not so much sleeping going on in my case. Of course the man who was sat next to me had no problems at all. He managed to overflow his generous rolls of belly on to my seat, take the whole arm rest and open his legs out as wide as they could so I was being pressed into the window. Then to my delight his head lolled towards me and started that well known tune 'I'm gonna snore really bloody loudly' that we all know and love. What made this even more frustrating from my part was that this guy didn't even have a ticket for the 'sleeper' carriage, he just snook in after the ticket man had left. Well I thought that the only way to make myself feel better in the condition was to gently drop bogies into his gaping mouth. Well, I didn't really, but that's what I would have liked to have done, next to rubbing his chewed pen lid round my arse.

Having arrived at my destination (Trinco) I thought it was very though that the army were searching through everyones bags and in my sleepy state didn't think anything more of it. For some reason I didn't think the next two army road block we passed through on the bus were strange and eventually I arrived at a lovely little beachside collection of huts where I could recover some lost sleep.

Feeling refreshed off I went for a walk along the beach. Awfully quiet I thought for such a well know beach area. There was not a single tourist in any of the hotels I popped in to see along the beach, and most hotels were surprised but pleased to see me. As I was continuing my walk along the bay I heard this rather large bang in the distance, odd I thought, but carried on blissfully unaware.

That is of course until I went for dinner in one of the restaurants and got chatting to some NGOs who were working in the city. Well it would appear that just before I had arrived there was shelling across the bay I was staying at, from one side to the other. The explosion I heard was a bomb being detonated at one of the check points which killed 6 and seriously injured 15. It would appear that the whole place was at flash point. Then the reason why there were so many white 4x4s and pickups from NGOs driving round. So many acronyms which I have never heard of others better known such as the UN, who advised me that I should avoid going into the city, and just stay round the beach area! So it was with much regret that I was forced to lay by the pool
in for three days, before catching the train back again.