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” Much of the trip remains open: I want there to be spontaneity. But the penultimate leg of the trip should take me winding across China and on to the ancient route of the silk traders through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Visas permitting, I will return to Europe through Iran and Turkey, and would like to conclude the trip with the Venice to London route. And I will be sending regular dispatches to the Discover section of The Sunday Telegraph. 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. 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.

Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh – Review Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh – Review

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." 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. Ffestiniog Travel (01766 772030; ffestiniogtravel.com) offers up to 30 escorted rail tours a year. Profits help support the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways.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. The only issue I could take up with Rajesh is that of the book’s title, which is of course a take on Jules Verne’s classic ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’. Being so sensitive and hostile to cliches, she, for some reason, chose to use one in the title not just of this book, but of her previous travelogue too. Why 80 trains and not 50 or a hundred? With all her considerable writer’s skills and imagination, she could have come up with something more original, I am sure.

Monisha Rajesh: Around the world in 80 trains — Dure Magazine Monisha Rajesh: Around the world in 80 trains — Dure Magazine

There was so much humanity with her, we really enjoyed her company, she was getting off before us, and she gave us three little red little strings with symbols of buddhas on the end and nigella seed. Anywhere else you wouldn’t put random things in your mouth! She challenged my preconceptions as well, she had this brand new gold iPhone, she still sends me little emojis of Buddha. 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! The trains in Japan are so quiet, there’s very little energy on Japanese trains. They’re very mindful of other people, and they’re very clean and too perfect, a little dull to be honest. While I’d been filling in forms and moving from one counter to another, Jem had come up with a list of sights and cities that he wanted to visit, handing it to me over lunch in a cafe in the Marais.

Recent articles

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. 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.