Eastern & Oriental Express

Start with the best fact about this train, because nobody believes it.

The Eastern & Oriental Express — teak panelling, marquetry, a pianist in the bar car, one of the two or three most glamorous trains on earth — is made of New Zealand hand-me-downs. Its thirty-one carriages were built by Hitachi and Nippon Sharyo in Japan in 1972, and they spent their first life as the Silver Star, an overnight service between Auckland and Wellington. When that ended, twenty-four of them were regauged from 1,067 mm down to metre gauge, shipped to Southeast Asia, gutted and rebuilt into something unrecognisable.

The train they became first ran on 19 September 1993, from Singapore's Tanjong Pagar station to Bangkok — four days and three nights by way of Kuala Lumpur, Butterworth and the bridge on the River Kwai. For thirty years that run was the E&O, and it is still what most of the internet will tell you the E&O is.

It isn't, any more. Covid stopped the train in 2020, and when Belmond brought it back on 12 February 2024 it came back smaller and more focused: two seasonal Malaysian itineraries, out of Singapore and back to Singapore, and no Thailand at all. The destination plates on the carriage sides now read Singapore — Taman Negara — Penang — Singapore.

Something was lost there. But what remains is still four days of extraordinary indulgence through a country that rewards it — inland to a rainforest that predates the Amazon, north to the shophouses of Penang, and back down the peninsula with the observation car open at the rear and the jungle sliding past a few feet away.

There are two itineraries now, and which one you get depends entirely on the month.

Wild Malaysia runs from March to October, and it is the one the train is really built for. It leaves Singapore, crosses the causeway into Johor, and runs north up the peninsula through the night. The next morning it turns inland at Gemas — where the main west-coast line meets the interior — and follows the Jungle Railway's own metals north-east to Merapoh.

Merapoh is a small place with a very large neighbour: Taman Negara, a tropical rainforest usually reckoned at something like 130 million years old, which makes it older than the Amazon and one of the oldest on the planet. You get off, you go into it — canopy walkways, leeches, hornbills, the noise — and then you come back to the train and somebody hands you a cold drink. That contrast is the whole proposition of this kind of travel, and the E&O makes no apology for it.

Then north again to Butterworth, on the mainland opposite Penang, and a ferry across to George Town: a UNESCO-listed tangle of Chinese shophouses, clan jetties, temples and colonial warehouses, with street food that people fly in for. After that the train turns round and runs back down the peninsula to Singapore. Four days, three nights, and you end where you started.

Essence of Malaysia, from November to February, does the same four days on a different loop — Singapore, Alor Setar up near the Thai border, Butterworth, Singapore — keeping out of the interior during the north-east monsoon, which is when the rainforest is at its wettest.

On board, the arithmetic is simple: the train is small, so everything is close. Marquetry and lacquer in the cabins, a dining car doing serious Malaysian and Thai cooking, a bar car with a piano, and — the best seat on the train — an open-sided observation car at the very back, where you can stand with the wind and the noise and watch the rails and the jungle run away behind you.

And if you have read that this train goes to Bangkok, or crosses the River Kwai, or takes you to Chiang Mai: it did, for thirty years, and it doesn't now. Half the travel writing online hasn't caught up.

The E&O is an all-inclusive package with fixed departure dates, run by Belmond — not a train you buy a seat on. Departures are roughly fortnightly through each itinerary's season, all 4 days / 3 nights, round trips from Singapore.

There are also occasional special departures in 2026 (a Tiger Express in May, festive journeys in late December).

Good to know:

• There is no Bangkok service. The single most important thing to know, and the thing most sources get wrong — the Singapore–Bangkok run ended in 2020; the train relaunched in February 2024 as Malaysia-only.
• The season picks your itinerary. If you specifically want Taman Negara, travel between March and October.
• Both are round trips from Singapore — you fly in and out of Singapore, which keeps the logistics easy.
• Everything is included — meals, wines and spirits, excursions and guides. You are buying a package, not a fare.
• Check the current itineraries before you plan around ours — Belmond has changed this train's route before.

Seasons and dates as of 2026. Confirm the dated departure calendar with the operator — see the Tickets section below.

You book the E&O as a package through Belmond, months ahead, and the price covers the whole four days — cabin, all meals, drinks, every excursion and guide. There are two itineraries, really one train and two seasons: Wild Malaysia from March to October, which turns inland for Taman Negara and is the one to want; and Essence of Malaysia in the monsoon months, routed up the peninsula instead. Cabins run from Pullman through State to Presidential, the difference being space.

Book far ahead — short train, short seasons, global demand. Do not plan a Bangkok connection, whatever an older guidebook says: there isn't one any more. Singapore at both ends makes flights simple. And pack something smart, because dinner on this train is a dress-up occasion and people enjoy it.

The excursions are built into the fare, and the train's short list is a good one. Which places you actually see depends on the itinerary: Taman Negara and the Merapoh caves belong to Wild Malaysia (March–October), Alor Setar to Essence of Malaysia (November–February), and Penang and Singapore to both.

One stop gets no entry below. Gemas is not a sightseeing halt but a junction that matters: this is where the west-coast main line meets the interior, and where the E&O turns onto the same metals the Jungle Railway uses.

For three of the four nights the train is the hotel, and the cabin grade is the whole decision.

• Pullman — the entry cabin: a compact, beautifully finished room converted between sofa by day and beds by night, with a private shower room. Small, in the way that all great train cabins are small.
• State — more floor, a proper sitting area, and space to be in the room during the day rather than in the bar.
• Presidential — two windows, a lot of teak, and the sort of price that answers its own question.

All of them are ex-Silver Star carriages from 1972, rebuilt to the point of unrecognisability — which is worth remembering while you're admiring the marquetry.

At the ends, both itineraries start and finish in Singapore:

• Singapore — worth a night or two either side. Stay in the colonial core near the old Tanjong Pagar station, where the E&O used to depart, or anywhere on the MRT; the city is absurdly easy.
• Penang — the one place to consider extending independently. The train gives you a day in George Town, which is not enough. A couple of nights in a restored shophouse hotel, eating your way through the hawker centres, is one of the best things in Southeast Asia.
• Kuala Lumpur — an easy add-on by KTM's fast electric trains if you want more of the peninsula.

Timing: March–October for Taman Negara, November–February otherwise — and note that the November-to-February window exists precisely because the north-east monsoon is drowning the interior at the time.