Copy link Copied Copy link Copied Subscribe to gift this article Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Already a subscriber? Login The entrance to Woodlands Station is a pure draught of old Singapore. Officials bark instructions as cars converge, disgorging passengers and luggage.
It’s a rare bit of human chaos, conducted in the steamy 30 degrees that prevailed before the city-state became a frictionless, temperature-controlled pleasure dome. By the time you make it up the stairs, however, you have travelled even further back in time. Parked along the concrete platform of the combined station and border checkpoint, surrounded by cyclone fence and razor wire, is contemporary luxury’s latest secret weapon, 15 carriages glittering like cloisonné jewel boxes in the sun.
The Eastern & Oriental Express is back with routes through Malaysia. Belmond’s Eastern & Oriental Express (E & O) is not in any sense a new train. Its relaunch a month ago, however, has been widely seen as further confirmation that high-end travel in general, and the luxury-train mini boom in particular, are back on track.
It’s a resurrection that started slowly and finished at lightning speed. Belmond, which owns luxury hotels, safari lodges, upmarket river barges and classic trains from the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express to Peru’s Andean Explorer, spent the early years of the pandemic undertaking mandatory checks and repairs to the E & O, and evaluating its options for wh.