An early start today, breakfast at 6:00, a 7:30 departure from the hotel, and a new route from hotel to station. Why a new route ? Well the shopping center we traversed yesterday evening was not open early enough.
Todays trip was composed of two separate train legs. The first from JB (as it is referred to on signs) to the small town of Gemas in a 1970s style train pulled by diesel locomotives and from Gemas a new electric European style train finished the journey into KL.
The first leg to Gemas was quite slow with an average speed of only 40kph. There were a lot of local passengers getting on and off during this leg so the people watching was interesting. The country side on this leg was dominated by palm oil plantations which, at times, stretched as far as the eye could see. There was much googling about palm oil trying to find out what it was used for and what the fruit looked like. Though throughout the leg noone got a good picture of the fruit.
The second leg was a good deal faster with the train regularly getting up to 140kph while the scenery began to show a greater density of habitation. The final destination was a station called KL Sentral. It is a large complex of long distance trains and metro services connected to a large shopping center. And again we had written directions to get us to our hotel The ALoft is part of the Marriot chain and is rated 4 stars. A nice hotel which I am sure we will look back on with nostalgia latter in the trip.
Dinner was at one of the eateries in the mall.