An exotic-looking brochure which describes a new, luxury train ignites my imagination — "the Eastern & Oriental Express." What an evocative name! A tourist choo-choo that runs on old narrow-gauge track between Singapore and Bangkok — up and down the jungly spine of the Malay Peninsula. Rubber plantations! Tin mines! Tiger country! The ghost of Somerset Maugham! I must go. I'm a train buff, I admit it. My list of railroading adventures is longvall kinds of journeys on six continents: Africa-hot, Zhivago-cold; exciting, dismal, dangerous, plush, boring; via trains that were never-on-time, or fast-as-bullets; red-velvet-Victorian or Communist-austere. Steam, diesel, electric, even magnetically levitated. Moved by steel wheels, cogs, cables and Michelin tires. No matter what style of train, nothing can be finer, I think, than dinner in the diner. 

This 1207-mile intercity trip on the "E&O" would take only a couple of days, I note — from Singapore north or from Bangkok south. A single train-set shuttles back and forth once a week.

"But Southeast Asia is a long way to travel just for a 42-hour train ride," I am reminded by one who knows how I can be carried away at the call of "En voiture!" 

Yeah, right. Singapore is halfway around the globe from Connecticut after all. I should maybe take a fresh look at that corner of the world while there. I muse for some theme, some "validation" (excuse) for my trip. Hmm, how about, "An-exotic-train-links-two-exotic-cities?" That might make a tale worth telling. 

So, I go, but first a pang of doubt: have I lured myself into looking for something that will not be here? "Exotic" is a dangerous word, I know, often abused. What does it really mean? Something unreal? Make believe? Strange? Alien? Something we have never known, only imagined; something we can never really see or touch, but only dream? Well, never mind dictionary definitions; I'll know exotic when I find it. 

At the end of the taxi ride from the airport, a great white cloud slides across the sky. It seems to be three stories high and pierced with many windows. I hear the crunch of a gravel driveway under our wheels. A towering, turbanned Sikh wearing much gold braid swings open the car door with a white-gloved hand. Along with inrushing equatorial heat comes his greeting, "Welcome to Raffles, sir."

Two years and $100 million were invested to make this most-famous old hotel in Asia more famous — and more exotic — than ever. Raffles is a travel destination unto itself, one of Singapore's premier attractions, a place to see and be seen, to stroll around its famed Palm Court, inhale the sensuous scent of plumeria, buy a drink at the Long Bar and be able to say, "Yes, I've been there, I know Raffles. . . ." 

(As I'm being escorted to my room, I'm sure I identify Maugham having a Singapore Sling at the Writers' Bar off the lobby. Looking a bit older, I notice, but surely he.) 

Fans turn lazily in the 14-foot ceiling of my four-room suite; original antique furniture and Oriental carpets on teak and marble floors; sunlight filtering through the verandah windows; two pairs of silky-soft Chinese slippers for silky-slipping around in; two handmade, bamboo-and-lacquered-paper parasols — in the event I and a lady think to go out with the mad dogs and Englishmen under the noonday sun; a bowl of custard apples, mangosteens and star fruits; a nostalgic excerpt from Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim placed on the pillow for bedtime reading; cut flowers on the dining table. I feel as if I have arrived at the very capital of Exotic. 

But it is another kind of capital, too, this Singapore, "the Incredible City State": three million population, five million visitors, burgeoning financial muscle, 70-story skyscrapers, world's largest container port, near-zero unemployment, obsessive attention to public health and safety÷a compact, 200-plus-square-mile island-nation where the conservative work ethic rules, crime is almost unknown and homelessness would be a disgrace if it existed, which it doesn't. All wonderful, wonderful, to be sure. But I'm here to look for Exotic, no? 

As in food. Eating is one of Singapore's great multiethnic treats. Oh yes, there are dim mosques and smoky Buddhist temples to sight-see, dreamy boat rides, dripping orchid gardens, colorful festivals, historic museums and tempting shopping — but what is more exotic than twenty thousand places to order cooked food? (Yes, right: 20,000 — the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board says so.) Countless permutations of Malay, Indian, Indonesian and Chinese cuisine, from pushcart street snacks to elegant restaurants. 

First, a proper colonial breakfast at Raffle's — a choice: pears in red wine, chicken porridge, lamb sausage, Dauphinoise potatoes, spinach quiche with smoked salmon — and something creamy and mysterious called Quark; what in the world is that?

(And, by the way, at the table by the window, could that be Noel Coward with the gorgeous Eurasian woman?)

Later, dining on the street, in the tropic night, choosing spicy, unfathomable dishes from the flaming, gyrating woks of pushcart vendors; sitting on rickety chairs, in the glare of dangling bare bulbs, hearing squeaky, sing-song music from the hawkers' radios; hailing a lad to fetch another fat, 650-ml bottle of Tiger beer; observing the Chinese gentleman at the next table as he withdraws his own personal ivory-and-gold chopsticks from their brocaded case — and, when the wind shifts, I can smell the sea. . . .

Or lunch at an herbal restaurant where patrons order not so much a meal as a prescription for their ailments. My eye runs down a long, sometimes puzzling Chinese menu. I am attended by a pretty paramedic waitress who explains the herbal/pharmaceutical efficacy of each dish I ask about. 

That one? She smiles with slant-eye beauty. "Chestnut good for kidney," she advises. Or the fish, I ask . . . what is that good for? "This fish is very good for appetite," she declares. Shark's fin soup — I think I know what that's for. "Yes," she smiles, "manhood." And what are those green vegetables that look like seaweed on a beach? "Oh, that very good for eyes in the dark." 

It was a wonderful and, I guess, exotic lunch — and my liver felt much better afterward!

One may also dine along the embankment of the Singapore river where Boat Quai is a "restaurant row" of 20 or more old godowns (warehouses) now converted to chic establishments that offer an international menu. I opt for Catalan and am impressed how precisely a young Chinese waiter describes today's tapas. (Reflections of city lights spill, like liquid neon, onto the black river. Now here is a place where one might expect to find Lord Jim!) 

In the Little India district, a menu on the wall: "Try our new specials! Maharaja Dosai . . . Maharani Uttappam, Tomato Uttappam . . . Almond Dosai now available from Friday to Sundays . . . Cholae Battera, also Iddiyappam, V.I.P. Thali, Gulab Jamus . . . ." 

I try vadai first, a sort of doughnut on which one drizzles various sauces after creatively intermixing them on a banana-leaf palette. No spoons or forks. Wailing, percussive Indian music in the background. Then masala thosai arrives, a large pancake folded over, spicy vegetables inside. 

It is Festival of Lights season. Tiny electric bulbs gleam and blink like a string of colored beads racing around a framed picture of the Hindu god, Vishnu . . . . 

One can also have breakfast (or afternoon tea) with one of the orangutans at the Singapore zoo. ("You've never eaten with an orangutan?" I was asked, straight-faced. How does one respond to being put on? By accepting the invitation, of course.) 

Singapore has a zoo to make zoo-haters think again. It is noted for its Komodo dragons and snow leopards — and a long-successful breeding program for the endangered orangutans. Hundreds of people show up every morning for the breakfast. Human guests are provided an American buffet: baked beans, fried eggs, frankfurters, toast. The beast-of-honor — this morning it is Missy — is seated at a massive table made from logs. She hugs an infant offspring with one long arm, eats bananas, rambutans, hunks of smelly durian, over-ripe papayas and other garbagy-looking stuff with her free hand. A zoo attendant stands by. 

Visitors come to Missy's table one at a time to sit close to the ape and have a photograph made. We are encouraged to put an arm around the creature — and are rewarded when the handler picks up the ape's long left arm and places it across our shoulders. (This photo-op is a little like a group of first-term Congressmen having pictures made with the President at the White House.)

Missy has big, hairy breasts that definitely need a bra. Her fur is a sort of reddish brown and quite bristly in texture, like the hair-stuffing from an old couch. I hugged her all the same, but she didn't hug me back, didn't even look at me with affection. Besides, she had smelly durian breath. So much for exotic romance! I decide to leave town! Time to catch a train!

The Eastern & Oriental Express is backed into Singapore's old Keppel Road terminal with its gleaming, brass-trimmed observation car arriving first. It is what train buffs might call a fancy string of varnish, all 19 modern-looking carriages being nicely turned out in dark green livery: two restaurant cars, 12 sleeping cars, two bars, a lounge, a saloon. (Unnotable locomotives are supplied by the Malay and Thai railway systems.) Total passenger capacity is 130 — but we are only 68 today — welcomed as we climb aboard by smiling, smartly uniformed attendants.

As the afternoon departure moment arrives, a station master in an all-white, notch-collar suit waits on the platform, poised as a matador. He holds red and green flags on short sticks — his banderillas. A minute-hand ticks forward, the green flag sweeps down, the train begins to roll. The journey has begun. 

My compartment has a rose-plush Victorian look; drapes with tasseled tiebacks, blossoms in a vase, a bowl of fruit, two brass table lamps, a couch/bed, a tight closet, brass light sconces. Walls are diamond-pattern marquetry done in Burmese rosewood. Two broad, double-glazed windows are spotlessly clean for scenery-gazing. The compact bathroom has a tiny marble sink, flush potty and a tight shower. The whole look is more 1990's-luxury than Asia-exotic. 

As we move slowly through rural Singapore heading for the Straits of Johore, I go for a first exploration of the train. The dining cars are already set up for dinner, all ablaze with starched white linen, shining flatware, polished crystal, flowers on every table. I walk through other nicely appointed lounge cars, a compact boutique (passengers are already shopping for pricey stuff with the E&O logo on it), a bar car and the open-air observation car.

As afternoon wanes, we pass through Malaysian villages where naked kids wave and battalions of putt-putting motor scooters wait behind crossing gates. The countryside glides by at about 30 miles per hour: oil palm plantations; dark, gloomy rubber forests; some macadamia groves; much red mud and red, muddy streams. The train plays a continuous song of steel wheels on steel rails — sometimes a whisper, sometimes a grinding cry. The cars lurch and tilt disconcertingly on the uneven meter-gauge tracks.

The observation-car platform is spacious enough for a couple of dozen standing passengers at a time. It is a windy, popular place at all hours. A small, adjacent bar dispenses drinks to be taken outside. An ever-changing cast of wind-buffeted sightseers visits here, all ages, many nationalities, all infected with the gaiety of a journey just beginning.

In the bar car before dinner, a smiley piano-player in white jacket is banging away at popular show tunes. Many lights reflect in etched glass mirrors. I am served a Malay beer by a Malay girl in a long, pink-crepe Malay kebaya. The barman wears a rich, silk-paisley vest with a high Chinese collar. A honeymoon couple hold hands and sip Camparis; two American women smoke up a storm while enjoying serial Singapore Slings; two businessmen talk agribusiness and the success of the strawberry crop in Thailand. 

Beyond the windows, it is still not full dark. Malaysia races by in the dusk: houses on stilts, smoky backyard fires, vegetable patches, laundry drying, heavy-horned buffalo mucking in watery ditches. Towering cumulus clouds are black mountains against a watercolor magenta sky. 

Passengers drift into the bar after the first dinner seating: a few tuxedos, sparkly cocktail dresses, whiffs of expensive perfume. They are the same folks who were on the observation platform this afternoon. We recognize each other now; nods and smiles between fellow travelers on a common journey.

This is an ultimate theme-park ride, I think, a make-believe travel experience. "Let's dress up and pretend we are going somewhere; let's play Trip!" It seems we are amateur actors who have paid to play our parts in an amateur theatrical. I wonder how our train must look as seen from a Malay village tonight — this string of speeding, brightly lighted carriages taking the rich-and-maybe-famous for a two-day ride — a trip that might be accomplished in two quick, cheap hours by air.

When I return to my compartment to "dress for dinner," heavy drapes are drawn, the couch has been transformed into an inviting bed, lights are dimmed. The train's perspective has turned inward now, an island in the night. I'm wondering if my old blue blazer will look okay for dinner-in-the-diner.

Second seating at 9. The service is white-glove proper, but slow; the food nouvelle-inspired, but more a series of presentations and tastings than a meal. Deviations from the set menu are too expensive for me to consider.

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