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. It would have given some interesting structure to a what was essentially a diary, made up of recollections. 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. I've been watching a YouTube traveler who goes to misrepresented countries (Indigo Traveller), and his travels aligned with some of Rajesh's experiences and really enhanced my reading of the book, especially in North Korea!

I would love to go to different places so these kind of travel books are the only way for me to experience it. Entertaining 45,000 mile journey via rail to Europe, Asia, North America by a British journalist and her fiance. Rajesh spends a lot of ink on the segments of the trip that pass through Russia, China, and North Korea.Then it’s on through China, Vietnam (where trains resemble “mobile skips”), Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore (“a starchy, characterless city”) and Japan, a nation that has truly “mastered utopian travel”. Overall, I enjoyed Rajesh’s candid assessment of each train and her sense of humour, as well as the friendships she and Jem made along the way. 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. 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. Jem was flicking through her notebook looking at the places they had been and the railways that they had travelled on.

However, around much of the journey – certainly in most of Asia, which is by far the majority of their route – they experience their skin colour as a small advantage. Monisha Rajesh is an author and journalist whose writing has appeared in Time magazine, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph in which she wrote a monthly column about travelling the world by train.Sharing a language helps, I suppose, as she is able to recount far more conversations in this chapter than elsewhere.

Born in Norfolk and mostly raised in Yorkshire - with a brief stint in Madras - she currently lives in London with her husband and daughter. I too found the author to be quite judgemental about how people travel (and it is because if this, that I didn’t warm to the author). 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. As other reviewers have said, it was not a trip round the World as Africa is not covered and neither is South America.They have heard bad things, which seem to be confirmedwhen, on the train from Riga to Moscow, they are the only passengers subjected to a prolonged and slightly rough check of their cabin and luggage – they are also the only brown people on the train. 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. We have a word in Dutch, gezellig, which means that there are no boundaries and that everyone is sharing and getting along…it’s a word that describes an atmosphere or feeling, like we are a train family. Locked up inside an apartment in the urban sprawl of Mumbai in the middle of a pandemic, Monisha's book was nothing short of a lifeline, much like it's star character. 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.

A wonderful account of the diversity of life and the inhumanity that is part and parcel of our world told with such grace, courage and humour. It shouldn’t have taken more than three hours from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi, but we broke down three more times, finally stopping in the middle of the jungle where creepers with pink flowers dripped down towards the tracks. The cities she visits are also described as a person talking to a friend and not as a Lonely Planet guide (thought she did mention it but in a good way).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.