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In 80 Zügen um die Welt: Mein 72 000 Kilometer langes Abenteuer auf Schienen
Captured with wit and warmth, energy and zest, one woman's attempt to circumnavigate the globe in eighty eventful train journeys
When Monisha Rajesh announced plans to circumnavigate the globe in eighty train journeys, she was met with wide-eyed disbelief. But it wasn't long before she was carefully plotting a route that would cover 45,000 miles – almost twice the circumference of the earth – coasting along the world's most remarkable railways; from the cloud-skimming heights of Tibet's Qinghai railway to silk-sheeted splendour on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.
Packing up her rucksack – and her fiancé, Jem – Monisha embarks on an unforgettable adventure that will take her from London's St Pancras station to the vast expanses of Russia and Mongolia, North Korea, Canada, Kazakhstan, and beyond. The ensuing journey is one of constant movement and mayhem, as the pair strike up friendships and swap stories with the hilarious, irksome and ultimately endearing travellers they meet on board, all while taking in some of the earth's most breathtaking views.
From the author of Around India in 80 Trains comes another witty and irreverent look at the world and a celebration of the glory of train travel. Monisha offers a wonderfully vivid account of life, history and culture in a book that will make you laugh out loud – and reflect on what it means to be a global citizen – as you whirl around the world in its pages.
When Monisha Rajesh announced plans to circumnavigate the globe in eighty train journeys, she was met with wide-eyed disbelief. But it wasn't long before she was carefully plotting a route that would cover 45,000 miles – almost twice the circumference of the earth – coasting along the world's most remarkable railways; from the cloud-skimming heights of Tibet's Qinghai railway to silk-sheeted splendour on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.
Packing up her rucksack – and her fiancé, Jem – Monisha embarks on an unforgettable adventure that will take her from London's St Pancras station to the vast expanses of Russia and Mongolia, North Korea, Canada, Kazakhstan, and beyond. The ensuing journey is one of constant movement and mayhem, as the pair strike up friendships and swap stories with the hilarious, irksome and ultimately endearing travellers they meet on board, all while taking in some of the earth's most breathtaking views.
From the author of Around India in 80 Trains comes another witty and irreverent look at the world and a celebration of the glory of train travel. Monisha offers a wonderfully vivid account of life, history and culture in a book that will make you laugh out loud – and reflect on what it means to be a global citizen – as you whirl around the world in its pages.
399 pages, Paperback
First published January 24, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 711 reviews
December 19, 2019
A few years ago, my husband and I took Amtrak on a loop around the United States. We loved it, so I was I especially intrigued by this travel narrative in which Rajesh and her boyfriend attempt to see the majority of the world only via train. As is probably unavoidable in a book that is trying to encompass the world at large, there were parts I liked better than others. However, one thing I constantly disliked is that Rajesh choose to travel almost entirely in third class or the equivalent thereof, and I got bored reading about how disgusting each of these train cars and especially the restrooms were. Yuck! To clarify, I don't care if she traveled third class, I care that she repeatedly complains about her decision. If it disgusts her so much, then she should stop putting herself in those situations; she has that option, as she is doing this for pleasure/work and not because she is poverty-stricken and has to ride that way as her only source of transportation. That's an entirely different, and more important, non-fiction book. I was especially bothered by this on the Amtrak chapters, because she mentions more than once that only stoners and other degenerates ride Amtrak. The United States has sadly abused its train lines, there is no doubt about that. But our experience on Amtrak was very enjoyable - because we booked the level of service that we desired for a relaxing vacation. I understand this gets into a lot of philosophical sticky wickets about privilege and what it really means to travel and experience other cultures, etc., which I'm not debating. I'm just saying if you claim to have a travel philosophy than own it and accept it and celebrate it, don't constantly complain about it while simultaneously believing it makes you more enlightened (which Rajesh basically says in the China chapter, by the way, when she complains about having to be with "tourists" on the Great Wall).
November 22, 2023
Things get off to a rocky start. Monisha tells us how much she loves train travel, it's in her blood, she just has to drop everything and travel the world for 7 months by train. Then she dismisses the entire continent of Europe and the first 15 trains of her journey in one chapter and tells us how painfully dull and mundane it all was... Things don't get much better through Russia and the Trans-Siberian Express doesn't get much love. By this point you wonder why she is doing this to herself. No one is forcing her and she seems utterly miserable...
Odd thing for a travel book - there is no itinerary or route map, a strange omission that leaves you grasping a little to determine just where they are heading sometimes. The route seems haphazard - for some reason they hop from Beijing down to Japan, then do North America and circle all the way back to Beijing again. Also the title of the book is very misleading - this is mainly a trip round Asia, North America and a little bit of Europe. Africa, South America, Australia are never touched, and it's not a Phileas Fogg style circumnavigation. It feels like a title that has been added as a marketing tool, although they so go on 80 trains - not that we hear about many of them.
A final negative - Monisha does come across as quite mean spirited on a few occasions, not only about the state of the trains she says she loves but loves to moan about, but also about some of her fellow travellers - if they don't want to talk to her or have a different outlook from her, she is quite dismissive of them, bordering on snide.
Fortunately things pick up when the trip hits China, then Vietnam and through to Thailand. There are entertaining trips through Japan, Canada, America and best of all North Korea and Tibet, before a final run through Kazakhstan and on the Orient Express from Venice. By the end I was won over, and thankfully so was Monisha.
It is good reading in our current time of restricted travel in 2020, and does make you want to get out and see the world, and enjoy it by train.
Odd thing for a travel book - there is no itinerary or route map, a strange omission that leaves you grasping a little to determine just where they are heading sometimes. The route seems haphazard - for some reason they hop from Beijing down to Japan, then do North America and circle all the way back to Beijing again. Also the title of the book is very misleading - this is mainly a trip round Asia, North America and a little bit of Europe. Africa, South America, Australia are never touched, and it's not a Phileas Fogg style circumnavigation. It feels like a title that has been added as a marketing tool, although they so go on 80 trains - not that we hear about many of them.
A final negative - Monisha does come across as quite mean spirited on a few occasions, not only about the state of the trains she says she loves but loves to moan about, but also about some of her fellow travellers - if they don't want to talk to her or have a different outlook from her, she is quite dismissive of them, bordering on snide.
Fortunately things pick up when the trip hits China, then Vietnam and through to Thailand. There are entertaining trips through Japan, Canada, America and best of all North Korea and Tibet, before a final run through Kazakhstan and on the Orient Express from Venice. By the end I was won over, and thankfully so was Monisha.
It is good reading in our current time of restricted travel in 2020, and does make you want to get out and see the world, and enjoy it by train.
April 11, 2020
First things first - why would you write a book about travelling the world by train and not include which trains were caught? Just for the the fun of it, at the end of each chapter, I would have loved to know exactly which trains they'd caught, which number it was on the leg of the journey, the distance travelled and by how many hours. It would have given some interesting structure to a what was essentially a diary, made up of recollections.
Second, why do books put photo sections mid-sentence. It's a chapter book, surely you could put them between chapters?
Pet peeves aside this was an interesting enough book. However, it took me a while to work out what was jarring about it. Rajesh is a journalist and this book felt dispassionate and insincere in places. Worst of all, I have no doubt that she was sincere but it came across as a series of journal articles shared with the express view to inform but not alienate, to critique but not completely criticise. As other reviewers have noted too, she complains about the state of the trains when she could clearly afford better - if you don't like it, don't do it; if you want to do it, don't bitch about it.
It just lacked a warmth of personality to it, I know it's a non-fiction book but I was still hoping for a story, not just an advanced version of that school assignment "What I did on my holidays."
Second, why do books put photo sections mid-sentence. It's a chapter book, surely you could put them between chapters?
Pet peeves aside this was an interesting enough book. However, it took me a while to work out what was jarring about it. Rajesh is a journalist and this book felt dispassionate and insincere in places. Worst of all, I have no doubt that she was sincere but it came across as a series of journal articles shared with the express view to inform but not alienate, to critique but not completely criticise. As other reviewers have noted too, she complains about the state of the trains when she could clearly afford better - if you don't like it, don't do it; if you want to do it, don't bitch about it.
It just lacked a warmth of personality to it, I know it's a non-fiction book but I was still hoping for a story, not just an advanced version of that school assignment "What I did on my holidays."
April 22, 2019
Seven months and having travelled 45,000 miles by trains all over the world, Monisha Rajesh and her fiancé were almost home enjoying the luxury of the Orient Express. Jem was flicking through her notebook looking at the places they had been and the railways that they had travelled on. Beginning at the Eurostar terminal they were across to the continent in record time, ready for their onward journey to Moscow. This was to be their longest journey, an epic eleven-day journey across the vastness that is Siberia before it neatly dropped them off in China.
They travel back and forth across the world, travelling through America, Canada, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and even a ventured into North Korea to see the public face of the dystopian state. The quality of the trains varied enormously too, the cool precise efficiency of the Japanese Bullet trains that whisked them across the country to the Vietnamese trains that left a lot to be desired with the quality and reliability. On each of the journeys, they engage with their fellow passengers teasing out stories from those travelling with them, sharing food and experiences and always hoping to make the connections to their next train. In some of the countries, she goes into a lot of detail, highlighting the political situation in Tibet or expanding on newsworthy stories to add depth to the narrative.
Part of the reason for travelling by train is that there is more opportunity to interact with the people around you, something that you don’t get travelling by car or even in a bus and I’m beginning to think that this is the way to travel. It is not always super fast, though some of the high-speed trains have made serious inroads into flying times, the main point of trains is to take the time to see the countries that you are passing through and absorb the culture in the places that you stop. A lot of the time in the book we only have fleeting glimpses from the train window of some of the countries they pass through. Thought that this was a shame, but it probably would have made the book twice as long. I really enjoyed this, she writes well and mixes the conversations and the places well to portray the ambience of that moment. I thought it was better than her previous book too. A refreshing take on the world that isn’t from someone who isn’t from a conventional background and who is prepared to engage and interact with the people who she meets, rather than merely observe. If there was one flaw though it is missing a map of her journeys and it would have been nice to have a list of the trains that she travelled on too.
They travel back and forth across the world, travelling through America, Canada, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and even a ventured into North Korea to see the public face of the dystopian state. The quality of the trains varied enormously too, the cool precise efficiency of the Japanese Bullet trains that whisked them across the country to the Vietnamese trains that left a lot to be desired with the quality and reliability. On each of the journeys, they engage with their fellow passengers teasing out stories from those travelling with them, sharing food and experiences and always hoping to make the connections to their next train. In some of the countries, she goes into a lot of detail, highlighting the political situation in Tibet or expanding on newsworthy stories to add depth to the narrative.
Part of the reason for travelling by train is that there is more opportunity to interact with the people around you, something that you don’t get travelling by car or even in a bus and I’m beginning to think that this is the way to travel. It is not always super fast, though some of the high-speed trains have made serious inroads into flying times, the main point of trains is to take the time to see the countries that you are passing through and absorb the culture in the places that you stop. A lot of the time in the book we only have fleeting glimpses from the train window of some of the countries they pass through. Thought that this was a shame, but it probably would have made the book twice as long. I really enjoyed this, she writes well and mixes the conversations and the places well to portray the ambience of that moment. I thought it was better than her previous book too. A refreshing take on the world that isn’t from someone who isn’t from a conventional background and who is prepared to engage and interact with the people who she meets, rather than merely observe. If there was one flaw though it is missing a map of her journeys and it would have been nice to have a list of the trains that she travelled on too.
January 20, 2021
Very disappointing book of a writer who seems to be looking down on everyone she meets. And doesn’t seem to enjoy travelling really, let alone travelling by train. She complains a lot, hardly describes the trains themselves or the destinations she visits. If a destination is described its mainly about the hotel or restaurant, or about very predictable topics: Visit the Great Wall when you’re in China. I love the writing of Theroux and Palin who colourfully describe their train travel with humor, interest and depth. Sadly, this book is no more than a superficial travel diary blog in book form of one of those travellers who always feels better then everyone else. Looking down on typical tourists, people who take pictures, people who don’t feel like socialising, people who haven’t travelled as much, people with different cultures, well..anyone really. Instead of spurring wanderlust, the book made me uncomfortable, irritated. Too bad!
August 9, 2019
Fitfully entertaining but superficial, Rajesh's memoir never quite lives up to its potential. While she technically does travel "around" the world, she never goes anywhere near South America, Africa, or Australia. She also glosses over long stretches of the trip she did take, and it's unclear if she needed more space or just didn't talk to anyone interesting along the way.
Rajesh spends a lot of ink on the segments of the trip that pass through Russia, China, and North Korea. She's well aware of the pitfalls of giving money and attention to some of the nastiest regimes in the world and she does seem to make some efforts to get outside the bubbles of their propaganda. There's not much evidence that she succeeded, though -- maybe a little, in Tibet -- so there's no great victory for journalism here.
Rajesh spends a lot of ink on the segments of the trip that pass through Russia, China, and North Korea. She's well aware of the pitfalls of giving money and attention to some of the nastiest regimes in the world and she does seem to make some efforts to get outside the bubbles of their propaganda. There's not much evidence that she succeeded, though -- maybe a little, in Tibet -- so there's no great victory for journalism here.
March 10, 2023
You know when you’re travelling and you get stuck talking to that obnoxious person at the backpackers/pub/tour bus who tells you all about how they get absorbed in the culture and they’re not a tourist and it’s all about the authenticity and experience the real (country?). This is them in book form.
February 16, 2021
Not at all what I was hoping for, I was hoping to travel without travelling but what I got was a book about judgemental and nieve girl who doesn’t seem to plan very well and comes across as very lazy. The book felt more about getting on 80 trains to hit a goal rather than actually seeing the world and enjoying it
February 19, 2019
I bought this book after hearing the author being interviewed on BBC R4. I enjoy travel books and trains, so it sounded ideal. It’s an easy read and covers a lot of ground, especially in North Asia, including a long section on North Korea. I’d have rated it a 4 except for one glaring error - there is not a single map in the book, so it was frustrating to have to get out the Times Atlas or Google the locations to see where she was and what her route was.
March 9, 2021
2/5 - one word: disappointing
I've caught the travel bug. For the past month, I've alternated between the unproductive wallowing in regret of not having taken a certain volunteer trip in the past and the equally unproductive daydreaming of my next travel location. I've resorted to a tried and tested method in the past- reading my wanderlust away. A quick Google search yielded this particular book and the title seemed interesting enough so I picked it up. Train travel has always been quaint in my mind (thinking of Agatha Christie and J.k. Rowling), so I thought I would enjoy it. Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong. Only the last quarter of the novel partially redeemed the entire thing. Rajesh is a whinier, more superficial and judgmental version of Elizabeth Gilbert, whose overrated popular book I found so annoyingly cliche I couldn't even read past the first chapter. Some of her conversations were interesting, which was another redemption point, but this is the last book you should pick up if you're trying to satiate your wanderlust. Her lackluster descriptions and cheesily superficial reflections at the end of every experience had me flying through the pages not out of excitement to read her next word, but to finish the book as fast as possible and get it over with.
I've caught the travel bug. For the past month, I've alternated between the unproductive wallowing in regret of not having taken a certain volunteer trip in the past and the equally unproductive daydreaming of my next travel location. I've resorted to a tried and tested method in the past- reading my wanderlust away. A quick Google search yielded this particular book and the title seemed interesting enough so I picked it up. Train travel has always been quaint in my mind (thinking of Agatha Christie and J.k. Rowling), so I thought I would enjoy it. Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong. Only the last quarter of the novel partially redeemed the entire thing. Rajesh is a whinier, more superficial and judgmental version of Elizabeth Gilbert, whose
August 27, 2021
Entertaining 45,000 mile journey via rail to Europe, Asia, North America by a British journalist and her fiance. It wasn't easy to get into at first, as she tended to skip around a bit, it wasn't exactly sequential, but once you get used to her style, it is really interesting and becomes a page-turner. I liked it for the updates on conditions in Tibet, Sinkiang, North Korea, as well as a look - albeit fleeting - on life in the hinterland of Russia and the ex-Soviet Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, as well as an interesting look at life today in Mongolia. The impression is that modern life has seeped into every last, once obscure corner of the Earth: Everyone has iPhones and tablets, everyone is wearing Nikes or Adidas, everyone seems to be on the same wavelength materially despite cultural and linguistic differences. Even a Tibetan Buddhist nun was using a smartphone to exchange text messages with her fellow nuns. A lot of the writing is breezy but that's nice in the current portentous day and age, but she sometimes has thoughtful digressions, musings on life, time, etc., as well as wonderful descriptions of cities, mountains, rivers, sunsets as she passes through the landscape on the seemingly endless journey. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in train travel - this book is about a truly epic train odyssey!
A few quotes:
"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."
"...we set off in search of anything ancient [in Ulaanbaatar], finding a couple of scrappy Buddhist monasteries, subdued during Soviet rule. It took us a couple of hours in the National Museum of Mongolian History, looking at armor, costumes and jewelry, to gain any sense of the city's old culture..."
"Unless associated with the [Chinese] emperor, nobody could lay golden tiles on their roofs, and gates were typically painted black, green, or red. After 1949, and the communist takeover, everything was repainted red."
"...we'd become obsessed with speed, checking our watches, glancing at the clock, running for the Tube, inventing bullet trains, faster internet and instant coffee, yet where was the extra time we were saving? And what were we doing with it?"
"Leaving my job, my home and my possessions had quietened the noise in my head. My immediate concerns were where to eat and where to sleep. The less I carried, the less I worried."
"...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."
"...time was only of the essence until we caught the train. Once on board, it ceased to matter."
"...the sound of cicadas shook from the trees like a million tiny maracas."
"With just twelve minutes until departure, the Sakura Shinkansen slid up with the stealth of a creep at a bar, and a woman stepped out carrying a bin bag. She stood next to the door holding it open as passengers exited the train, and bowed as each one deposited their litter. So used to the carpet of crisps and cans of Carling on British trains, I couldn't imagine anyone collecting their own rubbish, let alone being grateful for someone else's."
"Canadians don't take trains, they drive monster trucks from one province to the next, but that requires concentration on the road, and the need to stay awake. With this in mind, it now dawned on me why long-distance train travel held such great appeal. No other mode of transport combined my two favorite pastimes: travelling the world and lying in bed. Propped up with pillows, holding a morning cup of tea, I could lean against the window and watch as villages, towns, cities, states and countries swept past, safe in the knowledge that I was going places, while also going nowhere."
"[Tracy, guide on Canadian train:] 'Now it's time to read the news, or take a snooze!'"
"Our pseudo-busy, social media-driven lives had shortened our attention spans and tricked us into thinking we had no time for slowness and deliberation. Like babies, we were distracted by the slightest triggers, which were mostly trivial. For the first time in months, reading had become meditation again, almost medicinal in its healing."
"Unapproved journalists are not allowed to enter [North Korea] and newspapers regularly preyed upon foolish couples and American students willing to ham up tales of their visit for a tidy fee..."
"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."
"[In North Korea] The chance of an uprising was still remote, as the money and power lay with the upper echelons of society, who were quite happy to maintain the status quo so long as it worked in their favor."
"In a few hours we would be back in the smog and grind of Beijing, clogged with cars and angry people, and I wondered who really had the better lifestyle."
"China's cultural Revolution unfolded in the mid-1960s, driving the desecration of almost all of Tibet's monasteries, destroying libraries and paintings."
"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."
"But collectively labeling Uighurs as one oppressed minority was naive. No doubt there were a number who did subscribe to extremism, and it was a tragedy that the entire community was suffering as a result."
"...we don't really see or listen to each other any more: empathy is fading from existence."
"The earth was much smaller than I'd realized, and nothing was that far away."
A few quotes:
"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."
"...we set off in search of anything ancient [in Ulaanbaatar], finding a couple of scrappy Buddhist monasteries, subdued during Soviet rule. It took us a couple of hours in the National Museum of Mongolian History, looking at armor, costumes and jewelry, to gain any sense of the city's old culture..."
"Unless associated with the [Chinese] emperor, nobody could lay golden tiles on their roofs, and gates were typically painted black, green, or red. After 1949, and the communist takeover, everything was repainted red."
"...we'd become obsessed with speed, checking our watches, glancing at the clock, running for the Tube, inventing bullet trains, faster internet and instant coffee, yet where was the extra time we were saving? And what were we doing with it?"
"Leaving my job, my home and my possessions had quietened the noise in my head. My immediate concerns were where to eat and where to sleep. The less I carried, the less I worried."
"...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."
"...time was only of the essence until we caught the train. Once on board, it ceased to matter."
"...the sound of cicadas shook from the trees like a million tiny maracas."
"With just twelve minutes until departure, the Sakura Shinkansen slid up with the stealth of a creep at a bar, and a woman stepped out carrying a bin bag. She stood next to the door holding it open as passengers exited the train, and bowed as each one deposited their litter. So used to the carpet of crisps and cans of Carling on British trains, I couldn't imagine anyone collecting their own rubbish, let alone being grateful for someone else's."
"Canadians don't take trains, they drive monster trucks from one province to the next, but that requires concentration on the road, and the need to stay awake. With this in mind, it now dawned on me why long-distance train travel held such great appeal. No other mode of transport combined my two favorite pastimes: travelling the world and lying in bed. Propped up with pillows, holding a morning cup of tea, I could lean against the window and watch as villages, towns, cities, states and countries swept past, safe in the knowledge that I was going places, while also going nowhere."
"[Tracy, guide on Canadian train:] 'Now it's time to read the news, or take a snooze!'"
"Our pseudo-busy, social media-driven lives had shortened our attention spans and tricked us into thinking we had no time for slowness and deliberation. Like babies, we were distracted by the slightest triggers, which were mostly trivial. For the first time in months, reading had become meditation again, almost medicinal in its healing."
"Unapproved journalists are not allowed to enter [North Korea] and newspapers regularly preyed upon foolish couples and American students willing to ham up tales of their visit for a tidy fee..."
"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."
"[In North Korea] The chance of an uprising was still remote, as the money and power lay with the upper echelons of society, who were quite happy to maintain the status quo so long as it worked in their favor."
"In a few hours we would be back in the smog and grind of Beijing, clogged with cars and angry people, and I wondered who really had the better lifestyle."
"China's cultural Revolution unfolded in the mid-1960s, driving the desecration of almost all of Tibet's monasteries, destroying libraries and paintings."
"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."
"But collectively labeling Uighurs as one oppressed minority was naive. No doubt there were a number who did subscribe to extremism, and it was a tragedy that the entire community was suffering as a result."
"...we don't really see or listen to each other any more: empathy is fading from existence."
"The earth was much smaller than I'd realized, and nothing was that far away."
February 2, 2021
I love the concept of 80 trains around the world. We travel with Monisha and her fiancé Jem as they hit the tracks from London. Monisha has already travelled the triangle of India by train but this is going round the whole world.
They trundle through Europe and into Russia, China, South East Asia, Japan, US, Canada, Kazakhstan and even North Korea. Like any form of travel it can be dangerous but will also provide experiences that you will look back on with happiness for the rest of your life. Being stuck in an office job since the age of 18 I have not had the luxury of being able to travel. A week at summer is the most holiday I get. Put those violins away. I know. I would love to go to different places so these kind of travel books are the only way for me to experience it.
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.
A solid 3 stars but not 4 for an easy read travelogue.
They trundle through Europe and into Russia, China, South East Asia, Japan, US, Canada, Kazakhstan and even North Korea. Like any form of travel it can be dangerous but will also provide experiences that you will look back on with happiness for the rest of your life. Being stuck in an office job since the age of 18 I have not had the luxury of being able to travel. A week at summer is the most holiday I get. Put those violins away. I know. I would love to go to different places so these kind of travel books are the only way for me to experience it.
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.
A solid 3 stars but not 4 for an easy read travelogue.
June 26, 2020
Roundup to 2.75
“Trains were a link to the past and a portal to the future”
Monisha Rajesh & her fiancé spent 7 months traveling the “world” by train (although there are entire continents she never goes near) and she chronicles her encounters along the way. I wanted to love this book but I have a few quibbles:
1. Not a single map to actually see where she journeyed.
2. She glosses over entire countries, provinces and states in a single sentence.
3. Often her comments felt more like judgments than insights
4. I didn’t get a sense for most of the places she visited
5. She seems disappointed more often than excited by this fabulous opportunity
As a travelogue this fell short for me. It was only ok 😢
I did love this quote which she attributes to Charles Shultz, the creator of The Peanuts; “ In life, it’s Not Where You Go - it’s Who You Travel With.”
“Trains were a link to the past and a portal to the future”
Monisha Rajesh & her fiancé spent 7 months traveling the “world” by train (although there are entire continents she never goes near) and she chronicles her encounters along the way. I wanted to love this book but I have a few quibbles:
1. Not a single map to actually see where she journeyed.
2. She glosses over entire countries, provinces and states in a single sentence.
3. Often her comments felt more like judgments than insights
4. I didn’t get a sense for most of the places she visited
5. She seems disappointed more often than excited by this fabulous opportunity
As a travelogue this fell short for me. It was only ok 😢
I did love this quote which she attributes to Charles Shultz, the creator of The Peanuts; “ In life, it’s Not Where You Go - it’s Who You Travel With.”
February 5, 2022
Tren sevdalısı olarak hevesle aldım elime. Dünyanın etrafında 7 aylık bir tren yolculuğu. İyi, kötü, konforlu, konforsuz, süratli, yavaş, kalabalık, tenha onlarca trenle dünyanın dört bir yanına gidiyor Monisha ve nişanlısı Jem. Tren yolculuklarının heyecanının yanısıra gidilen yerleri tanımak açısından da keyifli bir kitap. Bilhassa Kuzey Kore'nin tanıtıldığı bölüm kitabın tümüne bedeldi. Bazı ansiklopedik bilgiler yer yer sıksa da farklı bir gezi kitabı okumak iyi geldi...
April 27, 2020
I was expecting this book to be a travel-guide, written by an adventurous woman in her 30s who has travelled around India by trains before and enjoys backpacking. I was hoping to get some recommendations on the trains, routes, locations and countries. However, let’s firstly start with the fact there is no list of trains and routes in this book (would have been nice to cover that plus length of each train journey). Secondly, I wouldn’t trust recommendations from a person who openly says she went to Tibet, through 0 elevation to 5k elevation on the train to 3.6k elevation with no time to adjusting to altitude – this is frankly, dangerous, and on top of that, the author has been complaining in her book about the bad symptoms. Oh wait, she also went up the Great Wall in ballet pumps and complained about it.
The author is very biased and has very strong opinions which makes the book a bit spoilt. I would have expected her to be a bit more experienced, but yet she falls in the usual typical tourist traps (which I was hoping wouldn’t be covered in this book) – not doing the research about places, being overcharged by a taxi driver who didn’t set the meter, expecting Chinese people to speak English and hoping it would be easy to navigate and instead spending time in Beijing shopping for cardigans in Zara. If reading this makes you feel upset, the book isn’t for you.
Reading this book was like reading someone’s unfinished thoughts which float around from one subject to another, not finishing the previous point/ statement, with no conclusion. I didn’t find out whether she managed to eat xiao long bao in Din Tai Fung (she mentioned the place, but never said if she went there) or if she ever tried fermented tofu – it was also mentioned in the book, but then the author quickly changed the subject, leaving me quite frustrated. What frustrated me the most is that she thought she was going to be killed in her hotel in Canada because she’s of Indian heritage and instead it was the bang of the AC. That was probably one of the worst moments of the book.
Some chapters were good, I did enjoy reading about Japan for example but I was still hoping to get more train facts, considering it’s about train travel. But mainly I was a bit frustrated every time I opened the book. Would I recommend it? Probably not, it’s an average book which didn’t meet my expectations.
The author is very biased and has very strong opinions which makes the book a bit spoilt. I would have expected her to be a bit more experienced, but yet she falls in the usual typical tourist traps (which I was hoping wouldn’t be covered in this book) – not doing the research about places, being overcharged by a taxi driver who didn’t set the meter, expecting Chinese people to speak English and hoping it would be easy to navigate and instead spending time in Beijing shopping for cardigans in Zara. If reading this makes you feel upset, the book isn’t for you.
Reading this book was like reading someone’s unfinished thoughts which float around from one subject to another, not finishing the previous point/ statement, with no conclusion. I didn’t find out whether she managed to eat xiao long bao in Din Tai Fung (she mentioned the place, but never said if she went there) or if she ever tried fermented tofu – it was also mentioned in the book, but then the author quickly changed the subject, leaving me quite frustrated. What frustrated me the most is that she thought she was going to be killed in her hotel in Canada because she’s of Indian heritage and instead it was the bang of the AC. That was probably one of the worst moments of the book.
Some chapters were good, I did enjoy reading about Japan for example but I was still hoping to get more train facts, considering it’s about train travel. But mainly I was a bit frustrated every time I opened the book. Would I recommend it? Probably not, it’s an average book which didn’t meet my expectations.
March 8, 2021
It’s not very often I don’t finish a book, especially about travelling. But for someone who claims to love travelling, all the author does is complain about it.
April 6, 2020
Best travel book I've read in a LONG while.
February 24, 2020
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.
I learned a lot about different trains. The fastest train in the world is in Beijing. The top speed of this train is 268 miles per hour. It would be an amazing experience for me to travel that fast. I learned there is a train called the Reunification Express in Vietnam. It goes from Hanoi to Saigon in Vietnam. I never even knew that train travel is available in Vietnam. I would love to ride on the Venice Orient Express. It travels through Italy and all of Europe . I would love to see the Dolomite mountains in Italy while riding on this train.
The author even travelled to Japan and rode the bullet train. I would to ride on this fast train and eat delicious Japanese food. I even learned two Japanese words in this chapter of the book. I learned that sakura means cherry and that kodama means echo. I hope I can use these two words when conversing with another Japanese person. I am in love with the idea of travelling by train because of this book.
I learned a lot about different trains. The fastest train in the world is in Beijing. The top speed of this train is 268 miles per hour. It would be an amazing experience for me to travel that fast. I learned there is a train called the Reunification Express in Vietnam. It goes from Hanoi to Saigon in Vietnam. I never even knew that train travel is available in Vietnam. I would love to ride on the Venice Orient Express. It travels through Italy and all of Europe . I would love to see the Dolomite mountains in Italy while riding on this train.
The author even travelled to Japan and rode the bullet train. I would to ride on this fast train and eat delicious Japanese food. I even learned two Japanese words in this chapter of the book. I learned that sakura means cherry and that kodama means echo. I hope I can use these two words when conversing with another Japanese person. I am in love with the idea of travelling by train because of this book.
July 12, 2021
This one is hard to rate - interesting read at times but I did find it hard to get through sometimes, and just wasn’t what I expected. Definitely focus’ on the train travel aspect rather than the places she visited and descriptions of them - which is what I wanted.
June 27, 2021
I’ll tell you why this isn’t a good book. There are three kinds of travel books: there are fascinating/insightful people who go to fascinating or challenging places—think Paul Theroux travelling through Africa, or Dervla Murphy riding her bike from UK to India. They not only are visiting interesting places, but they have insights about the culture, themselves, the world.
The second kind of traveler is an interesting person going somewhere mundane. The youtuber Beau Miles commutes to work via walking or kayaking, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary, unpicking what it is to move from one place—home—to another place—work, and all the psychological, existential insights drawn to invert the commonplace into sublime.
The last kind is ordinary people going to extraordinary places. The person doing the travelling may not be particularly interested in history, or gifted at writing, but they go to such dangerous, fascinating, wild places that we are willing to go with it. We want to know what trekking through Antarctica was like, or how they transited through the Darien Gap in Central America. The place, not the person, is the story.
The problem is that Rajesh doesn’t fit into any of these camps. She is a good enough writer travelling to interesting enough places. If she wrote this book 100 years ago: gold; but now, not so much.
The thing about travel is that it is an in-between space. It is the physical and temporal world between here and there. Good travellers understand the aspects of the history of where they have come from, which is the lens through which they perceive, but also learn about the place they are going. They get under the skin of where they end up. In contrast, Rajesh goes to Bangkok, dismisses the culture of Khao San Road, goes to bed and moves on to the next train journey. It isn’t just that the journey is the destination, but that she never physically or emotionally connects. It is the equivalent of endlessly flicking TV channels, never experiencing anything, never joining.
In short, Rajesh is all in-between and no here, no now. All her writing is effectively the published version of her notebook, a stream-of-consciousness social media post: the food on this train was bad; the Danes in our carriage ignored us; take photos of the whole body and head in North Korea.
And, on North Korea, I’m really uncomfortable with this. I know people travel there, but it’s the equivalent of visiting a nation state of Auschwitz. I think you need strong reasons to go there and Rajesh’s reasoning, to me, brushed off the gravity of the situation too lightly.
She isn’t a bad writer and it’s not a bad book. I think that travel writing is a full-contact sport and Rajesh needed to get her hands dirty, do some research, meet people.
The second kind of traveler is an interesting person going somewhere mundane. The youtuber Beau Miles commutes to work via walking or kayaking, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary, unpicking what it is to move from one place—home—to another place—work, and all the psychological, existential insights drawn to invert the commonplace into sublime.
The last kind is ordinary people going to extraordinary places. The person doing the travelling may not be particularly interested in history, or gifted at writing, but they go to such dangerous, fascinating, wild places that we are willing to go with it. We want to know what trekking through Antarctica was like, or how they transited through the Darien Gap in Central America. The place, not the person, is the story.
The problem is that Rajesh doesn’t fit into any of these camps. She is a good enough writer travelling to interesting enough places. If she wrote this book 100 years ago: gold; but now, not so much.
The thing about travel is that it is an in-between space. It is the physical and temporal world between here and there. Good travellers understand the aspects of the history of where they have come from, which is the lens through which they perceive, but also learn about the place they are going. They get under the skin of where they end up. In contrast, Rajesh goes to Bangkok, dismisses the culture of Khao San Road, goes to bed and moves on to the next train journey. It isn’t just that the journey is the destination, but that she never physically or emotionally connects. It is the equivalent of endlessly flicking TV channels, never experiencing anything, never joining.
In short, Rajesh is all in-between and no here, no now. All her writing is effectively the published version of her notebook, a stream-of-consciousness social media post: the food on this train was bad; the Danes in our carriage ignored us; take photos of the whole body and head in North Korea.
And, on North Korea, I’m really uncomfortable with this. I know people travel there, but it’s the equivalent of visiting a nation state of Auschwitz. I think you need strong reasons to go there and Rajesh’s reasoning, to me, brushed off the gravity of the situation too lightly.
She isn’t a bad writer and it’s not a bad book. I think that travel writing is a full-contact sport and Rajesh needed to get her hands dirty, do some research, meet people.
December 30, 2019
it now dawned on me why long distance train travel held such appeal. No other mode of travel combined my two favourite pastimes: travelling the world and lying in bed. p116
Monisha Rajesh is my kind of traveller; I would gladly join her with confidence to go anywhere.
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.
A vivid supplement were the two sections of photos included but how come no map?
But it was better to come and leave disappointed, than not to have come and be disappointed, imagining I'd missed something being disappointed about. p273
For a somewhat whirlwind tour MR gets beneath the superficial and goes for the essential qualities that characterize each nation they explore. I started looking up her references for a musical background to my reading and also some of the places that struck my fancy. Certainly it awoke my dormant urge and wow! I feel I got the benefit of travel without even leaving my bed!
May 13, 2019
An interesting and at times inspiring journey, as much about the people met during the authors travels as the places visited.
Disappointing at times however that the author allows their own stereotypes and beliefs to cloud their view of others who may not share the exact same views.
Disappointing at times however that the author allows their own stereotypes and beliefs to cloud their view of others who may not share the exact same views.
May 9, 2019
Around the World in 80 trains.
~
Thank you for sending this copy @bloomsburyindia :)
~
I rarely read travelogues or any book that speaks in-depth of the journeys that the authors undertake. And when this book came through the mail, I was quite intimidated by the size and weight of it. I was often afraid that I'd lose the will to continue reading it till the end but I managed to wrap this up in a week's time. Apart from being so brilliantly written, this book managed to give me a very strong urge to pack my bags and board a train rightaway :)
~
Around the World in 80 trains is about the author's journey as she sets out to cover 45,000 miles across the World. Monisha records her journey through this book as she explains in detail about the various trains that she took, the food that each place had to offer, the sleeping arrangements, the people and struggles of adjusting to new culture though it was for few days. Monisha and her fiance set off from London and cover Moscow, Asian countries, America, Canada, Kazakhstan and many others. My favourite part was their experience at Moscow which was terrifying to even read. I also thoroughly enjoyed how she explained the sceneries that she witnessed through the windows. One can almost imagine the hues spread across the skies and smell the food that she devoured over the course of her journey.
~
Apart from being a book about travel and experiences, it was also highly informative. She took out time to reach out to the surviving family members of The Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts and has listed in detail about the Japanese technology and traditions including the one with the Geisha. It's fascinating to see so many different cultures that the world has embraced and this book is proof enough that there are wonders in every place that we visit. My only concern was about how daunting this book feels in the initial few chapters. It's only after you get across them, that you'll truly be able to enjoy it. It gives a serious case of wanderlust and what more can you ask for from a book that paints a beautiful picture about traveling?
~
Rating - 4/5. #aroundtheworldin80trains
~
Thank you for sending this copy @bloomsburyindia :)
~
I rarely read travelogues or any book that speaks in-depth of the journeys that the authors undertake. And when this book came through the mail, I was quite intimidated by the size and weight of it. I was often afraid that I'd lose the will to continue reading it till the end but I managed to wrap this up in a week's time. Apart from being so brilliantly written, this book managed to give me a very strong urge to pack my bags and board a train rightaway :)
~
Around the World in 80 trains is about the author's journey as she sets out to cover 45,000 miles across the World. Monisha records her journey through this book as she explains in detail about the various trains that she took, the food that each place had to offer, the sleeping arrangements, the people and struggles of adjusting to new culture though it was for few days. Monisha and her fiance set off from London and cover Moscow, Asian countries, America, Canada, Kazakhstan and many others. My favourite part was their experience at Moscow which was terrifying to even read. I also thoroughly enjoyed how she explained the sceneries that she witnessed through the windows. One can almost imagine the hues spread across the skies and smell the food that she devoured over the course of her journey.
~
Apart from being a book about travel and experiences, it was also highly informative. She took out time to reach out to the surviving family members of The Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts and has listed in detail about the Japanese technology and traditions including the one with the Geisha. It's fascinating to see so many different cultures that the world has embraced and this book is proof enough that there are wonders in every place that we visit. My only concern was about how daunting this book feels in the initial few chapters. It's only after you get across them, that you'll truly be able to enjoy it. It gives a serious case of wanderlust and what more can you ask for from a book that paints a beautiful picture about traveling?
~
Rating - 4/5. #aroundtheworldin80trains
April 20, 2025
3.5*
Seniai džiaugiausi pagaliau užbaigusi knygą 🙃 Vienu metu man ji labai patiko, kitu - nervino. Iki galo taip ir neapsisprendžiu, ar labiau patiko, ar nepatiko. Man ji kiek per monotoniška, paviršutiniška ir visko joje per daug. Keliauti traukiniai neįkvėpė, bet pati knygos idėja įdomi ir graži.
Tokią knygą labiau pasiimčiau paskaitinėti kur ne kur, nes visą skaityti nuo pradžios iki galo man pasirodė per ilgu o ir prasmės nemačiau.
Seniai džiaugiausi pagaliau užbaigusi knygą 🙃 Vienu metu man ji labai patiko, kitu - nervino. Iki galo taip ir neapsisprendžiu, ar labiau patiko, ar nepatiko. Man ji kiek per monotoniška, paviršutiniška ir visko joje per daug. Keliauti traukiniai neįkvėpė, bet pati knygos idėja įdomi ir graži.
Tokią knygą labiau pasiimčiau paskaitinėti kur ne kur, nes visą skaityti nuo pradžios iki galo man pasirodė per ilgu o ir prasmės nemačiau.
August 8, 2020
I loved Monisha Rajesh's Around India in 80 trains, and have been looking forward to reading this one. It can't really be read as a sequel because there's little apart from the author's experience in Indian trains, that gets carried forward to this book.
It takes a while for things to get going in this book, and at one level, I'm glad it doesn't have some of the frenzy of the first book. I rated this book 4 stars because it captures some of the downsides to overtourism that I have come to loathe. I can relate to the hype and the need to not let hype get in the way of one's personal experience of a sight/site, and still being disappointed.
The book really gets into gear in N. Korea and China, and captures so much of the romance of train travel including the numerous little epiphanies about oneself while touching the edge of inner stillness in a moving train. Blessedly, not too much of that too.
I can't imagine spending 7 months chasing trains across the world, staying in some difficult conditions and braving extreme weather, anxiety about having one's belongings checked, disappointment with some places, while keeping one's belongings for those months to a bare minimum. While she doesn't go into much detail about this aspect, I would read the book just for her insights and anecdotes about this time.
And no, it did not trigger any feelings in me for missing travel during this pandemic.
It takes a while for things to get going in this book, and at one level, I'm glad it doesn't have some of the frenzy of the first book. I rated this book 4 stars because it captures some of the downsides to overtourism that I have come to loathe. I can relate to the hype and the need to not let hype get in the way of one's personal experience of a sight/site, and still being disappointed.
The book really gets into gear in N. Korea and China, and captures so much of the romance of train travel including the numerous little epiphanies about oneself while touching the edge of inner stillness in a moving train. Blessedly, not too much of that too.
I can't imagine spending 7 months chasing trains across the world, staying in some difficult conditions and braving extreme weather, anxiety about having one's belongings checked, disappointment with some places, while keeping one's belongings for those months to a bare minimum. While she doesn't go into much detail about this aspect, I would read the book just for her insights and anecdotes about this time.
And no, it did not trigger any feelings in me for missing travel during this pandemic.
July 3, 2020
I was given this book as a birthday present and was genuinely excited by the title and concept. I persevered to the end of the book in hope of getting some useful insights, but sadly they were few and far between.
Sadly, I found the book mundane and jaded, despite occasional attempts to inject some poetic context.
As another reviewer has observed, I was uncomfortable with how often the writer’s experience was conveyed in judgemental terms.
The writing too often felt like that in a magazine and I do my best to avoid magazines.
A few redeeming moments but I learned very little and didn’t establish an emotional connection.
Sorry but an opportunity missed in my view.
Sadly, I found the book mundane and jaded, despite occasional attempts to inject some poetic context.
As another reviewer has observed, I was uncomfortable with how often the writer’s experience was conveyed in judgemental terms.
The writing too often felt like that in a magazine and I do my best to avoid magazines.
A few redeeming moments but I learned very little and didn’t establish an emotional connection.
Sorry but an opportunity missed in my view.
March 2, 2020
Also managed to squeeze in a couple of non-fiction titles too with Monisha Rajesh Around The World In 80 Trains, her follow up to the brilliant Around India In 80 Trains, which sees her tracking a course through Europe, Asia and the Americas. Filled with beautiful observations, some alarming interactions, and her genuine love for life on the tracks, I really lost myself in this one. The irony being that I read a good chunk of this which covered the amazing efficiency of the Japanese rail system, whilst stuck on a replacement bus service for a couple of hours!
November 7, 2021
What a miserable, ungrateful author! I couldn’t stand the negative, narrow-minded commentary and lack of descriptive depth of some of the world’s most wonderful train journeys any longer and gave up soon after New York.
March 26, 2021
interesting travelogue about the author travelling around the world in 80 trains it is funny in parts and some of the book could relate as had travelled on those trainlines
November 20, 2021
I wanted to love this book as I love travelling by train but I struggled at first with what felt a rather superficial style. After a patchy start, it finally gets into its stride halfway through.
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