Armed with a 30-day "Far West Rail Pass" from Amtrak, the US national railway - and a whole host of other items in my luggage which I was to later find out to be unnecessary dead weight (hey, this was my first backpacking trip after all!) - I embarked upon sunny Los Angeles as the start of my great Amerika journey, with a great stumble.

Okay, it wasn't that bad. Just that I hadn't learnt how to balance my backpack and made the fatal mistake of bending down to pick up something, instead of squatting down slowly

Freedom, alas, I found came with a price: hassle and more comedy of errors. After an overdose of saccharine theme parks in touristy LA (see Los Angeles section), I was gaining confidence in my new-found independence and feeling proud at my adeptness in planning the exciting train expeditions ahead, starting with the easy short connection from Anaheim to LA.

With a keen sense of anticipation, I hopped onto the first vehicle that came. Hm,
why did it look so much like the MRT (Singapore subway) back home? Oh dear,
those seats didn't look too comfortable for long journeys... I arrived at the huge LA Union Station wondering why my ticket was never collected by anyone. And the

Well, we learn something new everyday, don't we? And I did get to my destination, by hook or by crook (oops, thank goodness I wasn't caught).

How could I have mistaken a subway for the real thing?! Amtrak trains were fantastic, superb, spacious, and all I imagined the setting for a romantic railway odyssey to be. With tremendous relief, I sank into the big and comfy seat with plenty of leg-space, feeling like a queen in a first-class airplane seat.

And thus, I embarked on my first memorable train voyage - a 33-hour sojourn on The Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to Seattle, with dramatic views of the Pacific Ocean coast, sometimes with the water edges right below the window, and subsequently giving way to gorgeous views of fertile wine valleys, dense forests and snow-covered mountains.

Trains offer a closeness that road vehicles can never quite achieve, les they fall over of course. And it helped that this train, one of Amtrak's most popular and scenic, had a lounge car with full-length window views all round and a wacky crew adding to the fun atmosphere, as it wound en route through Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, the Cascades, Albany, Oregon City, Portland and Puget Sound.

My passion for railway travelling was forever sealed when I woke up, in the wee hours of dawn, to the wondrous sight of the train encircling the edge of a snow-clad volcano.

My next trek was on the now-defunct Pioneer from Seattle to Denver. It was a relatively sedate ride in comparison to the Coast Starlight, but it was cool to be travelling through 4 states, viz Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming.

The highlight was definitely the spectacular Columbia River Gorge - some 130 miles (or 3 solid hours) of unusual rock formations, sand-dune like hills, waterfalls, hydroelectric dams, bridges, monuments, etc.

The latter half of the journey was less eventful being mainly high plains desert country, with occasional buffalo-spotting for distraction. It did give me time to do other mundane chores (er, the hassle part about absolute freedom), like mending stuff that had given way, more travel-planning, and yes, I had discovered the delight of discarding objects (a miracle considering I had been an accumulator of junk all my life and had, before this pilgrimage, never been known to throw away anything, to the annoyance of a certain lady I call "Mum").

I was to catch all my remaining itinerary on Amtrak with no trouble: The California Zephyr from Denver to San Francisco, the San Joaquins/Southwest Chief connections from San Francisco to Arizona, and back to LA again on the Southwest Chief for my flight back home. According to my by-now "rich expertise" on railway travel, my verdict on the best train trip in the US has got to be the California Zephyr. It traces the historical trail of the pioneers, the gold prospectors, the pony express and the telegraph to the golden city of San Francisco. There is one word that sums it all: awesome.

The adventure began with a blast as we climbed straight into the panoramic front range of the Colorado Rockies. The railway coaches erupted with euphoric cheers and delighted "oohs" and "aahs" as the train plunged into the South Boulder Canyon, with its splendid jutting rock formations and a series of 29 tunnels in quick succession. Emerging from the longest 6

The elation did not stop there. Thereafter, the course continued through the

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and the aptly-named Ruby Canyon, glowering mysteriously and hauntingly in the sunset, marked the climatic end to the glorious run of the Colorado valley. Sure, there was still the Sierra Nevada range to go but it paled in comparison to the paradise I had witnessed.

I have since traveled on the rail often but none quite as singularly beautiful as this incredible stretch. My only regret was not having been able to capture it on film. Those were the days when I was still using an auto-focus camera and had not upgraded to a SLR (single lens reflex camera). But perhaps, with the knowledge of shutter speeds, apertures and the importance of immobility which I picked up with the

Having lived in a city all my life, I was not too keen on visiting Los Angeles, except that it happened to be the location where my air ticket took me. And, of course, it seems to be the cliché thing for all visitors to America to do before one can "validly" declare that one has toured the States.

Well, if I had to do it, I might as well explore the neighbourhood where both my sisters had spent considerable time for study and work respectively and which they both had warned me to be careful about. "Do not take the subway; do not take the bus", I was solemnly told. Having already gone on the former by the master stroke of some grand design above (okay, it was a "malu" (i.e. sheepish) incident where I had taken the wrong train - see Rail section), I might as well try the latter which was called "DASH".

And so I "dashed" leisurely from place to place in downtown LA with no incident. It did not feel unsafe at all, with plenty of office-attired local folks on them. The city was

Now for the theme parks, starting with the grand dame of them all: Disneyland.

The highlight had to be the procession which, at the time I was there, featured the Lion King Celebration. I had not seen the movie before but immensely enjoyed the energetic music, vibrant colour and ingenious imagination that went behind the floats and performers' get-up.

The Disney folks are very good at what they are doing, I have to admit, and that is entertaining the kids in us all. Well, I did get a picture with a famous rodent named "Mickey" at his abode where I discovered that his reading habits included the title, "Gone with the Cheese".

In contrast, Universal Studios Hollywood was more adult fare. I thoroughly appreciated the guides' sense of humour in not taking themselves too seriously. After all, as one of them put it, all the building facades were constructed from Holly-wood, literally speaking! It was show-time, all make-believe, and the fun was in discovering how they created the special effects. These were really impressive, especially the

However, two attractions on consecutive days were enough for me to suffer from a case of theme park fatigue. There were other spots worth a visit, I was told, like Six Flags Magic Mountain and Knott's Berry Farm. Another time, perhaps, when I feel like calling on LA again - to get an autograph from a duck called "Donald".