by I took the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express three times last year. As a passenger, not as a pot scrubber or paddle boarder. I can’t imagine what good deeds I must have done in a previous life to deserve that blame. By the end of the third trip, I concluded that the entire VSOE operation was almost unimproveable. Crisp as new banknotes. No flaws worth mentioning, nothing missing.
However, after returning from a trip between Singapore and Penang on the relaunched Eastern & Oriental Express – another crazy train time machine, operated by the same people, Belmond, and the VSOE – I am thinking about whether I need to revise my earlier opinion a bit. If there’s one thing the VSOE lacks, it’s the remote but real possibility while on the E&O of seeing a Malayan tiger lurking warily in the leafy embankment next to the tracks.
Despite its old fashioned appearance – roughly Victorian with Art Deco elements; dark green and cream with polished brass lettering and a rampant tiger motif on the outside; gleaming cherry wood panels and silky, velvety, jewel-toned fabrics on the inside – the E&O train is not old. It was launched in 1993. The service was suspended in 2020 and resumed in 2024, with the rolling stock renewed and improved in the meantime. Two new seasonal, three-night itineraries through Malaysia have been introduced and a new Culinary Curator has been appointed, Taiwanese superstar André Chiang, who rose to international prominence at Le Jardin des Sens in Montpellier with three Michelin stars.
On this particular trip, the sybaritic stakes were higher than usual. It was a special Solaire trip organized and hosted by Veuve Clicquot, the first in a series of three such trips that will take place in 2024 on Belmond trains on different continents (details below).
Minutes away from Woodlands Singapore station, we crossed the causeway and entered Malaysia. I joined half a dozen passengers in the open-air observation car. Rain drums on the roof. The hot wind blew the rain a little, causing the group to cluster in the middle of the transport. The corridor of palms through which we passed glowed darkly. “Well,” someone said. “It really is a jungle out there.”
From start to finish the journey ran as smoothly as Champagne (Veuve Clicquot, naturally). It wasn’t exactly smooth, as there was constant swaying, tilting, jolting, squeaking and clanging as the train made its unhurried way along tracks that had been laid more than a century ago. Far from worrying, this inevitable intrusion soon seemed as soothing and relaxing as the sound of popping corks.
I was surprised by the diversity of the crowd. High rollers, loving couples, ride-of-a-lifetime types, beets, train nuts. Champagne nuts, too, of course, on this trip. Wide spread of nationalities and ages. Two funny young women from Los Angeles, one of whom wore Chanel head-to-head, all day, every day, including, at dinner on our first night, a feathered headdress that might have caused the rhinoceros horns and blue-throated bee-eaters over our windows stare in open-mouthed wonder.
Dinners were great occasions, worth dressing up for. André Chiang explained that he intended to take us on a journey from Asia to Europe and back, sailing through spices; Veuve Clicquot’s cellar master, Didier Mariotti, promised to add to that journey a parallel episode of his own in the history of the vessel as expressed through a selection of his vintages.
We stopped for tours on days two and three, the first in Taman Negara National Park, in the center of the country, the second in George Town, on Penang, off the west coast in the Straits of Malacca. I had distant memories of George Town from a childhood visit more than 40 years ago but was impressed by the intensity of its pulse and calmness. This impression was enhanced by the fact that I saw a lot of it from the back of a Vespa, riding behind a local guide who, in between breaks to explore street art, a temple with a traditional puppet theater and other places of interest. , talking cheerfully about her dinner plans. “Whatever you do,” she said, “don’t leave Malaysia without a curry.” Her advice took on the air of prophecy when André Chiang, back on the train that same evening, brought a wonderful Penang duck curry with Muscat grapes and pineapple, paired with Veuve Clicquot Terrific Cave Privée Rosé 1989 .
But it is the most vivid national park in my memory. Taman Negara is a place of extraordinary beauty and a verticality that is more dizzying than anything you could experience among the steel and glass forest in Kuala Lumpur. Thanks to an agreement reached by Belmond with the local authorities, we had the park to ourselves a few hours before the official opening time. And thanks to our guide, a locally-born biologist, there was a strong focus on aspects of the conservation challenges facing Malaysia today. The conversation touched on the plight of the critically endangered Malayan tiger, of which, according to some estimates, there may be fewer than 50 still surviving in the wild. About the same number of tigers in the whole country as there were passengers on board the E&O.
Characteristic of these Belmond train journeys is that, although in theory you have plenty of time to do nothing, the days and nights fill up without any deliberate effort on your part and you are gone in no time. Magic tricks were performed in the Piano Bar along with Nanyang jazz and traditional Malayan hypnotic music for the thrust and gambus. I promised myself that I would find someone to teach me mahjong but in the end the closest I got to a board game was preventing another passenger from swallowing a Go pebble that she took out of a bowl was flowing with them, as they joked about sweets. You could probably keep yourself to yourself if you wanted to – cabins in all three categories, Pullman, State and President, are extremely comfortable, and even the smallest ones have their own bathrooms. But train travel, or at least a train like the E&O, is a fundamentally social affair, a catalyst for conviviality and an antidote to jadedness.
A word of advice regarding the end of the trip. You’re unlikely to want the embroidered-dragons-and-lampshade fantasy to hit the buffers at the same moment as the train. I strongly recommend a night or two at Raffles in Singapore after boarding, to ease the re-entry process. Certainly more beautiful today than at any time in its long history, it will provide the softest of landings.
The Eastern & Oriental Express, A Belmond Train, Southeast Asia offers two three-night itineraries, “The origin of Malaysia” (from November to February) and “Wild Malaysia” (from March to October, except June), from USD3,750 (£2,992) per person. For booking and more information, visit belmond.com. Raffles Singapore (00 65 6337 1886; rafts.com) have rooms from SGD 2,000 (£1,180) per night.
Champagne Rallies: the Catering Tours
Veuve Clicquot’s yellow label, the famous carte jaune, is one of the most recognizable and visually irresistible Champagne brand flows. Its exquisite combination of sunlight, growth and the rhythms of nature is a convenient link to the Maison’s Solaire Journeys concept, developed in partnership with Belmond. Following the first Solaire Tour through Malaysia on the Eastern & Oriental Express in April, two more tours will follow in 2024, also on Belmond trains: from Vienna to Reims on the Venice Simplon Orient Express in July, and from Cusco to Arequipa and Machu. Picchu on the Hiram Bingham and Andean Explorer in October. (Note the east to west sequence of the journeys – a thoughtful touch usually in keeping with the theme of the sun.)
These Solaire Tours offer champions a unique opportunity to enjoy exceptional vintages of Veuve Clicquot in the company of cellar master Didier Mariotti, in settings and against equally rare and exceptional backdrops. “There is no doubt that our environment and surroundings affect our experience of champagne,” he told me during our recent ride on the E&O Express. “Colours, sounds, temperature, light, atmosphere, mood – they all play a part.” Over breakfast, lunch and dinner on these Catering Tours, and during organized tasting sessions in between, serious oenophiles can consider how such factors affect the aroma, taste and texture of the range of Veuve champagnes Clicquot available, and compare notes, in person, with the man who knows more about them than anyone else. The rest of us can sit back, raise a glass and drink in the views.
The next Veuve Clicquot Solaire Tours come from Vienna to Reims on the Venice Simplon Orient Express (from £6,900 per person, 4-6 July 2024), and from Cusco to Arequipa and Machu Picchu on the Hiram Bingham and Andean Explorer ( from £11,970). per person, 21-26 October 2024). For bookings and more information, visit belmond.com and veuveclicquot.com.
