Mission accomplished: Overland from London to Singapore

Trains: The overnight train journey from Port Klang to Singapore.
Packing Miranda into a container destined for Australia felt like a great achievement. However, we where still a stone throw away from Singapore and the thought of not reaching our intended destination by car felt disappointing. Therefore we thought that it was only fitting that we should attempt to travel overland to Singapore to complete our original aim of driving from London to Singapore. Unfortunately it soon became clear that this idea was going to be a lot more difficult than we first expected. Firstly, we no longer had Miranda and secondly there was no accessible public transport in Port Klang to take us to the train station, from where we had been told that we could travel to Kuala Lumpur in order to catch an overnight train to Singapore.

Yet again, the Malaysia hospitality came to our rescue in the form of One Dollar offering to drop us off at the Klang train station. Offering a lift to someone with a cervical spinal cord injury isn’t that straight forward. Being paralysed with the type of legion that I have sustained has many restrictions. One such restriction is not having the control of the relevant muscles that would ordinarily enable me to independently transfer from my wheelchair and into a normal seat. If someone offered to lift me into the vehicle seat they would find the task very difficult because my body below the level of my spinal cord injury behaves just like deadweight. Consequently, rather than contemplating the previous two options, I find that it is infinitely easier to travel in my purposely built wheelchair. As a result of these extra challenges One Dollar came up with a plan, which we gratefully accepted. Moments later I was hoisted into the back of one of One Dollar’s friend’s pickups by a team of willing hands. Chrissy and One Dollar’s friend squeezed in either side of me and managed to hold my wheelchair down as we ambled towards the station. This isn’t the first time that I have travelled in the back of a pickup however this short journey made me think that if I could never drive again, I would definitely choose to ride in the back of a pickup whenever possible. For what reason? Because it is damn good fun!

Having said our farewells to our new found friends we wheeled on to a perfectly accessible train headed for Kuala Lumpur. I had not expected our journey to be this straight forward, which made me think to myself, ‘Wow, this is easy’. This thought only amplified when we arrived in KL Sentral train station and the lady who sold us our tickets convinced us that our overnight carriage on the Singapore bound train would be completely accessible. With our minds set at ease, we waited for five hours amongst a small crowd in an air-conditioned departure lounge until an announcement was finally made at 11pm informing us to descend one level to catch our train. As we came out of the lift the relentless humidity hit us like a wet towel. In a blink of an eye the other passengers scurried into their carriages faster than rats leaving a sinking ship, which left us in a dimly lit, empty platform with an endless line of carriages laid out in front of us. We were then confronted with the task of trying to find our ‘accessible carriage’. I felt like I had been pushing my wheelchair for miles when I looked up to see Chrissy racing ahead of me with a trolley full of luggage.

All of a sudden a strange feeling of panic came over me. It is the feeling of panic that will only occur when scrambling to catch a train on a desolate platform. A thousand thoughts and senses seem to flash through your mind all at once. At the outset you think that the doors will slam shut at any moment and the train will pull away leaving you standing on your own and feeling like a substitute who was never picked for the B team let alone the A team. At the same time you sense that the passengers who have seated themselves comfortably are getting an enormous amount of satisfaction from watching you helplessly race towards the carriage in the hope of seeing the doors slam automatically in your face. You can almost hear them saying excitedly, ‘He’s not going to make it. He’s not going to make it’. If you do manage to jump aboard you can often catch the look of disappointment on their faces. That’s if you are quick enough. Finally, you foresee that if you do miss the train you’ll be left feeling totally exasperated that all of the effort you had gone to, to catch the damn train in the first place had been totally wasted.

Thankfully we didn’t experience this level of disappointment from missing the train that night but moments after Chrissy reached our carriage she realised that the corridors leading to our accessible cabin would be barely wide enough for a prop-forward let alone anyone in a wheelchair to fit through. By the time I arrived it was clear that our accessible carriage was accessible – to everyone apart from someone in a wheelchair. Our saving grace was a) having been on the road for six months, which had taught us to adapt to every situation and b) having gained the assistance from a very willing Conductor called Zaid. Within minutes of inspecting the train it was clear that there was no way I could get on it by sitting in my wheelchair. Instead of losing our sense of humour we decided that missing the train all together would be a proverbial pain in the backside and that there would have to be a solution to the problem. Our only option was to set up one of the bunks in the cabin and to get Zaid and Chrissy to carry me under the arms and legs a hundred yards up the narrow corridor, from where they could squeeze through the narrow doorway, throwing me onto the bottom bunk bed. I would then have no choice but to stay in this bed until the following morning. The only option for my in-collapsible wheelchair, would be to leave it overnight in just inside the slightly wider train carriage entrance, until I had to be carried off to Singapore the following morning. Simple?

The plan worked well really well apart from when I was lifted; my elbows acted as a handbrake as they jammed into the narrow walls on either side; my lucky charm given to me in Iran slipped out of my pocket as my trousers started to fall down and when I was laid out in the bunk it was clear that whoever had designed this carriage must have considered that the bunks would only be frequented by dwarfs, young children and descendents of Chrissy. This meant that I had to spend the night with my legs bent at the knees. I soon found that as the train rocked from one side to side another I had to prevent myself from being launched out of bed by wedging my elbows into the mattress on both sides of my body. Added to this, the uncontrollable air-conditioning on the train was blasting directly at our bunks. All in all the experience was like trying to fall asleep whilst lying on a tight-rope during gale force Antarctic winds. Unable to sleep in our sub-zero compartment I wondered whilst watching the room rock from left to right whether the Chief Engineer had decided to handle the more sophisticated plans and delegate the design of the cabin onto a sadistic employee set on sabotaging his bosses reputation, because at that time it certainly felt like it.

The train journey did reveal something to us and that was that Zaid was quite a character. Standing on the platform before we got on the train he said in a thick Indian accent, ‘I tell you, if you’re needing anything, you just ask me’. Maybe it should have been me saying that to him, because after he had helped Chrissy lob me into my bunk he spotted our unread limited edition National Geographic that we had just spent six dollars on and said, ‘I’ll be just taking that as a souvenir and I’ll read it tonight’. Luckily for Zaid he had such a charismatic full toothed grin that he could probably get away with asking the Queen if he could borrow her private toilet or even wear her dressing gown. Even so, we had to deny him his request.

It turned out that he had the same reading interests as we did. After this he went on to tell us how he had worked on the train for nearly twenty years and had met all types of people. Before Zaid bid us good night he came out with an interesting comment. He said, ‘My Uncle and Auntie is Christian. My sister-in-law is Chinese and I speak Chinese fluently. My sister is Hindu and I’m married to an Indian Muslim. And I can tell you, its not religion that creates war but the hearts of people. For centuries religion has been used by bad people to control people’. After divulging his thoughts he promised he would be there at 6am in the morning to help us.

Sure enough the next morning Zaid was standing at our door with his reading glasses parked on his forehead and wearing his trade mark grin and bright blue uniform. He said that when we got to the Malay/Singapore border I should stay where I was and that the Malaysian officials would be much more laidback than the Singapore border guards. He was right. Standing in the doorway of our cabin the Malaysian officials stamped my passport without any problems. However, on the Singapore side of the border everyone was ordered to leave the train whilst sniffer-dogs rampaged through the cabins. After everyone’s passports had been checked the crowd was finally allowed to board for the final thirty minute section of the train ride. Luckily for us, Zaid did some sweet talking on the Singapore side, which enabled me to stay where I was.

When we arrived at 7am in Singapore both Chrissy and I felt knackered from our sleepless journey. The ultimate part of our journey was being lifted out of the carriage and as we emerged both my glasses and Chrissy’s camera steamed up from the humidity. Although it had been a challenge, the moment I touched down in my wheelchair certainly made us feel like we had reached a final destination on one section of our long overland journey.

Planes: Singapore to Bali in a jetplane

Our journey to Singapore was intended to kill two birds with one stone. Firstly, it was our final intended destination on our first overland journey and secondly it was the place where I could get my Baclofen pump refilled. In short, Intrathecal Baclofen Therapy prevents severe muscle spasms that can occur as a result of a spinal cord injury. It works like this. A subcutaneous pump the size of an ice hockey puck that sits on my abdomen continually delivers a drug called Baclofen into my spinal cord fluid. Without this type of therapy my muscle spasms would be so severe that they would prevent me from being able to sit on a showerchair without spasming off it and the thought of driving would be to contemplate the impossible. As you can probably guess this type of therapy is extremely beneficial. The only problem is that the Baclofen pump needs topping up with Baclofen three times per year.

The pump is designed and produced by a company called Medtronic and during a refill we were lucky to meet the friendly sales manager for the Baclofen pump. His name was Justin and being a coffee fanatic he very kindly shouted us coffee on two separate occasions. Later he and his girlfriend (Kylie) took us out to dinner in downtown Singapore, where – coinciding with the Chinese New Year holiday - they introduced us to a Chinese salad only eaten during this special occasion Before you eat it you all have to toss the salad with chopsticks as high as you can while simultaneously performing many good luck wishes (for the coming year) e.g “I wish you happiness everyday, good health and to winning the lottery” Apart from being good fun it also tasted delicious too.

It was great getting to know both Justin and Kylie and learning about life in Singapore. According to Justin, one of the best things he likes about Singapore is the fact that he feels safe nearly everywhere that he goes. During the few short days I began to understand what he meant. Whilst we were in Singapore we mainly used the MRT (Tube) to get around, which turned out to be very accessible and convenient. On the night we returned from having dinner with Justin we just managed to catch the final train for the night. Throughout our journey back to the YHA that night, even in the darkest lanes, there wasn’t one moment when Chrissy and I felt unsafe. It was a comforting feeling especially when I compared this experience to times spent in other cities around the world.

Indecently, when we were planning this trip we had originally hoped to have enough time and funds to enact our dream plan of island hopping all the way from Singapore to East Timor, from where we hoped to ship Miranda to Darwin. It later became apparent - after numerous mechanical breakdowns, that the funds and time necessary to do this were diminishing and that this idea wasn’t meant to be. On a separate note, whilst we were in Malaysia we calculated that it would be more cost effective for us to stay in Bali rather than spend two weeks in Brisbane waiting for Miranda to arrive. So this hop, skip and jump approach of getting from Singapore to Australia was an unexpected opportunity to explore a part of Indonesia we had hoped to visit. This sounded like a privilege to us.

Flying to Australia via Bali seems like an easy option, however air-travel has to be the hardest part of travelling anywhere for me. I would have much rather driven the rest of the way – if it weren’t for the annoying part that Australia is an island and there is so much water in the way. Airline travel is generally an undignified experience too. Airport staff (some) think I am unable to answer a question purely because I am in a wheelchair. As a result they generally direct their questions to the one person standing next to me, which is probably one of Chrissy’s (only) pet hates. Once they’ve realised I can actually speak we are generally left until last before we board the aircraft, so that everyone can watch my trousers falling down as I’m bundled into my seat. What’s more I am prone to acquiring pressures sores on my buttocks. To prevent this happening I have to sit on my silicon gel cushion, which boosts my height, so that my head towers above the top of the seat and the other passengers. It is also a perfect position for the head rest to dig into my back. There is nothing like standing out like a sore thumb. Finally, if we land without my head crashing into the seat in front of me (because I don’t have the trunk muscles necessary to hold myself up while the planes brakes are being slammed on) we then have to wait until everyone has gotten off before I am manhandled from the plane seat, down a staircase (with limbs splaying in all directions) and finally into the safety and freedom of my wheelchair.

Automobiles: Our transfer from Bali International airport to Ubud

Unfortunately our flight to Bali went pretty much as predicted, but it kicked off well because we were seen off in style with a guest appearance from Justin. Prior to flying out to Bali we had pre-arranged a wheelchair accessible vehicle to take us out to our accommodation in Ubud. As you can see from the picture, it probably doesn’t meet everyone’s standards of accessibility but luckily I could I just about fit in it. The transport here is somewhat TIGHT!

Over and out.