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

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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." Ffestiniog Travel (01766 772030; ffestiniogtravel.com) offers up to 30 escorted rail tours a year. Profits help support the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways. You talk a lot about the difficulties in travelling in areas that aren’t diverse or as accepting of other cultures, did that affect how you travelled, and how do you feel we can break down the barriers in travel? Dismissing the idea of leaving, I carried on with the humdrum of daily life, suppressing the urge whenever it rose, until I finally gave up the fight: there was too much to discover on the rails, and the trains were waiting – but not for long. Train travel is evolving at high speed: bullet trains are multiplying, long-distance services running out of steam. Sleeper services are being phased out, and classic routes fading away. According to economists and pessimists, the romance of the railways is dying a swift death, but I refused to believe it was true. Nowhere in the world could rival India’s railways, but I knew that every country’s network would possess a spirit of its own, it just needed a prod and a poke to unearth. Trains are rolling libraries of information, and all it takes is to reach out to passengers to bind together their tales. 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!

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

At one point Rajesh writes, “But now, I had a greater sense of place than ever before, bearing witness to the truth that the world was small, close and connected.” To me, lying on my sunbed in the garden having travelled Around the world in 80 trains with them, this strikes a chord, although this book was written well before the pandemic. My world has shrunk to more or less our house and garden, but if I look at my phone or switch on the news, I can see the awful effects of the pandemic across the world affecting all of us, wherever we live. Your latest book “Around the world in 80 trains” has recently won the Nat Geo book of the year, how did you go about planning such an awesome journey?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. An epic journey . When I say that I felt almost physically tired at the end of this book, I mean it as a compliment, a testament to its vivid evocations (Country Life)

Book review: ‘Around the World in 80 Trains’ by Monisha

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

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I didn’t want to get a preformed view in my head and not allow the country to open up. I was there for around ten days and took a charter train to several cities and the coast. There’s a sense of trust, you’re very open with yourself and your things, and you go to sleep without worrying about your things. We never had any stolen whilst on any of my travels. Sitting in a cafe in Milan, I scanned the list of trains we’d already taken. Every time I bent down to write, the sound of mopeds distracted me, as young women with legs like Bambi put-putted past in sandals and summer dresses, revving over the cobbles like something out of a Dior advert. Monisha Rajesh makes every country and their attractions sound so appealing. I would never even think about travelling to Tibet or North Korea. I would like to visit these countries because of her descriptive writing. There is the Potala palace in Tibet. This palace contains the Dalai Lama's throne. Tibet also has many butter sculptures made by monks. I think this would be interesting to see. I would love to see all of these things in person. I would love to visit Pyongyang to attend a film festival. I love eating new dishes. I would love to try the yak curry in Tibet. I would even try the cumin bread that is available on the silk road in Asia. 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."

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

So, Monisha is no Paul Theroux, that is a high bar, but this is an engaging enough travelogue. There is a little bit of history thrown in at certain places like Japan and Thailand which really do add to the book. I especially liked the chapter on North Korea. I had no idea that the guided tour allowed such travel by train in that country. 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. Probably not a bad thing,’ said Mark, narrowing his eyes. ‘Russians don’t tend to be particularly warm towards, how should I say it, people of your …’

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Rajesh and her fiancé trace Sir Harold’s journey in the book. He comes across as a remarkable character who many years later, invited a remorseful Mikio Kinosh*ta, an engineer with the Japanese Imperial Army to London. Additionally, the encounter with Toshiko Yamasaki, the daughter of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only victim to have survived being at ground zero of both atomic bombs is also thought provoking. This is travel-writing entirely at home in the 21st century, penned by a travel writer entirely comfortable in her own skin, and unashamedly enthused by the thrill of setting out to meet new people and to see new places ( Asian Review of Books) Great Rail Journeys (01904 734500; greatrail.com) Offers guided tours by rail worldwide, including a number in Britain utilising heritage trains and routes.