What it’s like to ride Belmond’s Eastern & Oriental Express: newly reopened in 2024, ‘Asia’s most luxurious train journey’ steams along Malaysia’s Jungle Railway on the way to Penang

May 7, 2024

Riding the Eastern & Oriental Express: by train through Malaysia with Belmond, on the Jungle Railway to the Taman Negara National Park and on to Penang. Photos: Handout

Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express made overnight train travel exotic, and taking a luxury ride along Malaysia’s Taman Negara National Park evokes the bygone era of the classic mystery novel

Sleeper trains are the trending sustainable way to travel – with the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express the ultimate in luxury, while other options include the British Pullman, the Royal Scotsman and even trips through the Peruvian Andes and to Machu Picchu

It’s sunrise – seven in the morning – and I’m wrapped in a dressing gown, sipping a steaming cup of coffee in the open-air observation car of the Eastern & Oriental Express. From this vantage point, I watch tranquil vistas of rural Malaysia roll by, a scene made all the more delightful by the company of new-found friends met during the trip.

When I first read Agatha Christie’s classic 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express, and again as I watched the 2017 film adaptation starring Johnny Depp years later, I was intrigued by the lavishness of it all. Opulent, old-world decor; mannered speech and fashion; extravagant meals, service and facilities – being on board a train like that with a handful of well-to-do strangers seemed like something I’d never get closer to than in the pages of the work of fiction I’d grown so fond of in my childhood.

All aboard! The Eastern & Oriental Express sets off

That is, until I joined “Asia’s most luxurious train journey” last month. Run by experiential travel company Belmond, the Eastern & Oriental (E&O) took us on a three-night adventure departing from Singapore, before winding through the jungles, paddy fields and plantations of Peninsular Malaysia.

The Eastern & Oriental Express reopened in 2024

After a four-year hiatus, the E&O returned to the rails in February following a glamorous facelift, offering a choice of two routes exploring Malaysia’s great outdoors.

I’m on the Wild Malaysia itinerary, which means riding the Jungle Railway north though the peninsula’s interior to historic Gemas and the primordial jungles of Taman Negara, then doubling back to the more travelled line up the western coast, heading north to Kuala Lumpur and the cultural mosaic of Penang, before the homeward leg back again down the coast to Johor.

Belmond’s Eastern & Oriental Express offers luxury amid the wild

Long-haul train travel has had something of a resurgence in recent years, largely down to demand for more sustainable travel options. At the luxury end of the market, Belmond is in the vanguard, with the famed Venice Simplon-Orient-Express itself, running from Paris to Venice; the British Pullman and the Royal Scotsman in Britain; and two trips in Peru – the Andean Explorer, and the Hiram Bingham from Cusco to Machu Picchu. Other notable operators include Accor-owned Orient Express La Dolce Vita which has trains slated to debut later this year, offering routes down through Italy, with connections to Paris, Istanbul and Split in Croatia.

Besides the LVMH-owned Belmond in Southeast Asia, Thai hospitality group Anantara has launched a private, custom-designed carriage that takes guests on a six-hour journey between Anantara Hoi An Resort to Anantara Quy Nhon Villas in Vietnam daily, while celebrity-favourite Aman has an exclusive train carriage that transports guests from Jakarta to Amanjiwo aboard the Kereta Api Wisata.