Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure

Product Information

Delightful ... Rajesh is not only blessed with an elegant style, but is witty and ever ready for a bit of self-deprecation ( Spectator) I know, but I’m curious. You know how you hear about places when you’re a kid and you imagine them to be a certain way, I’ve always wondered what Lourdes is like.’ Before leaving London, she had interviewed Sir Harold Atcherley, a surviving POW (he has since died) who had recently played host to one of his old foes because “you can’t go on hating people”. Atcherley told her that “equal proportions of good, indifferent and lousy people exist in any group, any country”. In Hiroshima, she times her arrival for memorial services marking the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb, and seeks out 81-year-old Tetsushi Yonezawa, who tells her: “If I had stayed in Hiroshima, I would have died. These trains saved my life.” Jem’s hands were like ice. He hated dogs, and although I adored them, even I had felt my bowels loosen at the heat and smell of the sniffer dog’s saliva in my face. As the train squealed and began to move on into Russia, the snores from above deepened, and I eventually turned on my side and allowed myself to fall asleep. We’d wanted adventure, and I could tell it was about to begin. 2 A Small World

Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure

Second, why do books put photo sections mid-sentence. It's a chapter book, surely you could put them between chapters? Rajesh is certainly in possession of a rare writer’s gift comparable to that of a good actor who can read the phone book and still make it sound exciting for the audience. As she rattles along through countries and continents, her attention to detail is astonishing. She is also as smart as a whip and doesn’t take no for an answer. A lot of Amish people travel on trains, especially around Pennsylvania. It was lovely seeing them interact with non-Amish people, sitting next to people with iPads! Train travel around the world can differ immensely, was there any countries or rail journeys that were a surprise? Rajesh and her boyfriend Jem set out from London to travel around the world visiting many diverse places, including France, Italy and other European countries, Russia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, China, Mongolia, Tibet, Canada, the USA, North Korea and Kazakhstan. Along the way Rajesh describes the interesting encounters she has with the people they meet.

🍪 Privacy & Transparency

While North Korea spins stories, the Western media is just as guilty of indulging its own agenda, painting North Koreans as one-dimensional robots serving their great leader." Gaudí’s House … Valencia … Lourdes? Really?’ I asked, as the waiter placed a basket of freshly sliced baguette on our table along with two paper placemats and a carafe of water. I’ve never understood the bizarre need to complete a route in the fastest time possible. Why waste an opportunity to absorb all that a place and its people have to offer by shooting in and out? I could travel around the world in 10 trains; I could do it in a hundred if I wanted to. Eighty, I thought, was a nice round number that would make the journey a challenge – but not an impossibility.

Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh, review: a

On this trip, accompanied by her terrific partner, she brings her warmth and intelligence to each situation they encounter. I am not sure I could muster her patience and humour. It was like listening to C-3PO and Stephen Hawking having the most passive-aggressive argument I’d ever witnessed. Tapping at her watch, Vittoria was not about to budge, and her shop was about to close. Offering a further ten-euro discount, she moved our clothes out of reach, at which point I was ready to explode, knowing that Vittoria had exploited the vulnerability of two foreigners unable to speak her language. Sweating from the steam in the shop and the steam in my ears, I dragged Jem out onto the pavement and went in search of the ATM.Are you sure?’ He stared at the map. ‘There are some pretty hairy places under those pins. Iran? Uzbekistan?’

Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure

I spent a day heading to the suburbs of Moscow, we got spat at. We turned up at a distant town, people just stared at us, it felt very intimidating. We later read that it said we shouldn’t have travelled on suburban trains. Railbookers (020 3327 2467 ; railbookers.com) Independent rail specialists which, in addition to putting together itineraries, can also arrange accommodation along the way. after Pol Pot captured Phnom Penh in 1975, the trains played accomplice to his genocidal regime, enabling the evacuation and relocation to the countryside of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians forced into hard labor that led to their starvation and eventual massacre." I really enjoyed China, its a mixture of the best of Japanese trains and more lively trains. They have brand new high-speed trains, with smoking on board and huge dinner parties! I had put this trip off, I felt like I couldn’t do it one book, no one had done an around the world train trip before!Karen, a Canadian, explained a few things that we would never have learnt about. She joined us for dinner, she was lovely, she gave us so much history of Canadian trains. I never knew that Chinese people built the railways as slaves. Also that if anyone comes from the trees they can flag down the train and the train will legally have to stop for them. A silk sleeping sheet, it’s great in the winter to keep the cold out and in the summer it keeps you cool. A silk sheet also bundles down into fist size! We don’t have that much time in Moscow,’ said Jem, ‘just a couple of days, as we’re taking the Trans-Mongolian to Beijing and it only departs on certain days of the week.’

Around the World in 80 Trains Around the World in 80 Trains

The young Uighurs were regularly stopped and asked to hand over their phones for examination, and CCTV cameras above mosques ensured they didn't try to enter to pray."Another thing I did, there were several events that I wanted to cover. It was the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing and the 70th anniversary of the founding of the North Korean “Worker’s Party of Korea” (the ruling party of North Korea). So for certain dates, I had to be in certain countries. For the North Korean stint, I had to be there at a certain time because they do the train tour once a year. One character I particularly enjoyed reading about was Sir Harold Atcherley, a 97-year-old former Japanese prisoner of war she had met in London before leaving to go on her adventure. Sir Harold was one of 7,000 men from F Force sent to build the Burma-Thai railway in April 1943. By December the same year more than 3,000 of them were dead, 3,000 hospitalised and only just over 100 were still deemed fit for work. “Insightful observations and rich descriptions” Time and again [in India] I encountered so-called 'godmen' exploiting the poor and vulnerable, priests extracting money for nothing, and blind faith leading to disappointment." Travelling on US trains is very eye-opening, you also learn a lot about the economy, life and politics. The US has such a large divide in class and wealth and it’s an amazing way to learn about it!