Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar sees travel writer Paul Theroux return to the same train lines and destinations that he visited more than 30 years earlier.
That journey, which kicked off with a train trip from London and saw Theroux reach as far as Sri Lanka, Japan and Russia, resulted in The Great Railway Bazaar mentioned in this title, a classic of travel literature that still resonates with readers today.
In 2008-published Ghost Train, Theroux goes back, but not in a tedious way. The trip is not an exact replica of his 1981 itinerary, given he can’t get a visa to Iran, and he assesses that Afghanistan is too dangerous. But from London again he takes in central Europe and Turkey, central Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan and Russia.
Theroux is acutely self-conscious of being that annoying traveller who insists you should have been here yesterday, so his observations remain astute. Only occasionally does his alignment with the past become a little tedious: In particular, Vietnam and Cambodia, while brutally and horribly still affected by America’s horrific interventions there, has long moved on in a psychic sense. Theroux’s focus on the past here seems to obscure the more interesting task of finding out more about where they are going. His seeming obsession with sex workers also feels somewhat dated, as does the trope of taking the pulse of a nation through conversations with taxi or tuk tuk drivers—though to his credit, he speaks with far more varied occupations along the way as well.
Three decades on gives Theroux the greater perspective of travel that comes with getting older: “After a certain age the traveller stops looking for another life and takes nothing for granted.” His lyrical observations have that novelistic feel of describing something you’ve always thought but never put into words, too: “Men of a certain age, and some women too, often have the watchfulness, the pop-eyed, almost reptilian stare, the glowing dome and the bone structure we attribute to extraterrestrials.”
Theroux is the real champion of the independent budget traveller. He would not characterise himself as a backpacker, but he does travel like one. He writes of stumbling across The Orient Express: “It was not my train because, one, it was too expensive: it would have cost me around $9,000, one way, from Paris to Istanbul. Reason two: luxury is the enemy of observation, a costly indulgence that induces such a good feeling that you notice nothing… Luxury spoils and infantilizes you and prevents you from knowing the world.”
Theroux’s ability to capture what life is like for the independent traveller in modern times—or at least during pre-Instagram modern times—remains unrivalled. Consider, if ever you’ve arrived in a city on a public holiday, or been there when a small bomb has detonated, or riots have gripped a small area:
“A national crisis is an opportunity, a gift to the traveller; nothing is more revealing of a place to a stranger than trouble. Even if the crisis is incomprehensible, as it usually is, it lends drama to the day and transforms the traveller into an eyewitness. Purgatorial as a crisis sometimes is for a traveller, it is preferable to public holidays, which are hell: no one working, shops and schools closed, natives eating ice cream, public transport jammed, and the stranger’s sense of being excluded from the merriment—from everything.”
We found his pure hatred of Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew somewhat energising—it goes for pages and pages. “Singaporeans’ personalities reflect that of the only leader most of them have ever known, and as a result are notably abrasive, abrupt, thin-skinned, unsmiling, rude, puritanical, bossy, selfish and unspiritual,” he spits.
For the Southeast Asian traveller, Theroux’s descriptions of the region make for a handy read ahead of a trip, or will stir nostalgia for some. A decade later, already much of what Theroux wrote about has changed yet again. On the other hand, much has stayed the same, and indeed echoes of The Great Railway Bazaar still reverberate throughout the region—particularly if you eschew the scourge of low-cost carriers and go buy a train ticket.
Buy online: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes & Noble |
108 results found
By George Orwell
By Emma Larkin
By Charmaine Craig
By Amitav Ghosh
By Thant Myint-U
By Andrew Marshall
By Walter Mason
By Madeleine Thien
By Laura Jean McKay
By Sebastian Strangio
By Lawrence Osborne
By Steven W. Boswell
By Jon Swain
By Francoise Bizot
By Colin McPhee
By Eka Kurniawan
By Louise Doughty
By Leila S. Chudori
By Richard Lloyd Parry
By Elizabeth Pisani
By Simon Winchester
By Tash Aw
By Jock Serong
By Tim Hannigan
By Lawrence Blair
By Jan Russell (editor)
By Alfred Russel Wallace
By Andrea Hirata
By Christopher J. Koch
By Pramoedya Ananta Toer
By Cameron Forbes
By Joshua Kurlantzick
By Mai Der Vang
By Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid
By Colin Cotterill
By Christopher Kremmer
By Colin Cotterill
By Anne Fadiman
By Peter Carey
By Tash Aw
By Tan Twan Eng
By Tash Aw
By Selina Siak Chin Yoke
By Kevin Kwan
By Lee Kuan Yew
By Jing-Jing Lee
By Zhang Ruihe and Yu-Mei Balasingamchow
By Jeremy Tiang
By Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
By Cheryl Lu-Tien Tan
By Jeremy Tiang
By Balli Kaur Jaswal
By Sonny Liew
By Cyril Wong
By Isa Kamari (translated by Alfian Sa'at)
By Chris Flynn
By Alex Kerr
By Maryvelma O’Neil
By Lucinda Riley
By S.P. Somtow
By Carol Hollinger
By M.R Kukrit Pramoj
By Rattawut Lapcharoensap
By David Thompson
By J. Antonio
By Alex Garland
By Andy Ricker with JJ Goode
By Joshua Kurlantzick
By Richard Flanagan
By Prabda Yoon
By Paolo Bacigalupi
By Philip Cornwel-Smith
By Neil Sheehan
By Walter Mason
By Norman Lewis
By Graham Holliday
By Andrew X. Pham
By Emily Maguire
By Ocean Vuong
By Thi Bui
By Marguerite Duras
By Christopher Goscha
By Graham Greene
By Viet Thanh Nguyen
By Bao Ninh
By Viet Thanh Nguyen
By Tim O’Brien
By Neil Sheehan
By Elizabeth Becker
By Anthony Bourdain
By Rebecca Solnit
By Tiziano Terzani
By Joe Studwell
By William Finnegan
By Michael Vatikiotis
By Rolf Potts
By Elizabeth Becker
By Simon Winchester
By Alain de Botton
By Jamie James
By Paul Theroux
By Elizabeth Gilbert