A train journey through Malaysia’s jungle into its colonial past on the Golden Blowpipe railway line
- Now nicknamed the Jungle Line, the tracks run from Kelantan’s east coast to Gemas in the heart of the Malay Peninsula
- Built between 1910 and 1930, the route was a feat of engineering, originally meant for freight
Built between 1910 and 1931, the Jungle Line, as it is now affectionately known, was a feat of engineering, traversing virgin rainforest and bridging rivers that could rise and swell at the first hint of rain. It had been built for freight, but where the railway went so did people, and it wasn’t long before settlements cropped up along the tracks.
There is little at Tumpat except the end of the line, so I begin my five-day Golden Blowpipe adventure in the Kelantan state capital, Kota Bharu, 15km to the south.
The most interesting of Kota Bharu’s many museums is perhaps the Istana Jahar, housed in a beautiful teak structure built in 1855 by Sultan Muhammad II of Kelantan for his grandson. This is a museum of royal customs, including the rituals involved in marriage, pregnancy and childbirth. To the side of Istana Jahar, the Royal Palace boasts an impressive gateway through which the public are not permitted to pass.
Kota Bharu is served by Wakaf Bharu station, just across the Kelantan River from the centre of the city. On the platform, a mother studies her phone while four children play, two old men sit at a table chatting and small birds hop between the tracks in search of grubs. A mynah bird eyes my biscuits hopefully but flies off when, with a blast of its horn, the 2.19pm to Gua Musang rumbles into the station.