Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh
With the Black Lives movement finally getting the traction it deserves over the past few months, we wanted to show our support on Sage Adventures. So we’ll be highlighting the work of BAME authors in our regular book review spot. This month I’ve been reading Monisha Rajesh’s highly acclaimed Around the World in 80 Trains.
Want to see a particular travel and adventure book by a BAME author reviewed on Sage Adventures? Leave a comment below or find us on all the socials.
What’s Around the World in 80 Trains all about?
As the name suggests this award-winning travelogue explores and celebrates global train travel. Never getting anywhere too fast or too slow — train travel is about the journey. It’s about understanding the people and the places through observation and curiosity.
Monisha Rajesh’s first book took inspiration from Jules Verne’s classic novel — Around the World in 80 Days. Covering 40,000km (the circumference of the Earth) Rajesh travelled around India by rail. She hoped to reconnect with a country so important to her family and her heritage yet lost to her.
Some years later she would explore the whole world for her book titled ‘Around the World in 80 Trains’:
- From the breathtaking highs of Tibet’s Qinghai railway at altitude
- To restricted travel through North Korea
- And the grandeur of the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.
Rajesh has seen it all — all 45,000 miles from the relative comfort of a train. Her journey weaved a path across Europe, into Asia, around North America. From there she would explore some of Asia’s least ventured countries — North Korea, Kazakhstan and beyond.
Together with her fiance Jem, the pair spend 7 months around the world. They hop from one train to another with eyes open, notebooks at the ready and a natural curiosity. Never one to shy away Rajesh uses her journalist experience to seek out stories from fellow travellers, locals and historians around the world. They strike up lifelong friendships that show no boundaries unlike the lines on a map. Staying in touch is easier than ever before thanks to technology and a little creativity. Who would have thought they’d stay in touch with a Tibetan nun who doesn’t speak English but can be understood through emoji’s on WeChat!
The aim of their adventure is to uncover the truth behind bullet trains and low-air fares. Has it reduced railways to a thing of the past?
It’s all about people — culture and shared stories
Looking back on the book the central theme is all about people. It’s about how:
- People come and go through our own stories and journeys
- We glimpse snippets of peoples lives on trains. We might be eavesdropping on a conversation or snatching views out the window
In Rajesh’s words, trains are “an open window into the soul of a country and its people.” And train travel provides, “a front-row seat to unedited, unscripted footage of other people’s lives.”
Rajesh isn’t afraid to strike up conversation with strangers, to keep her eyes and ears open and to question everything. It’s this inquisitive nature that gives the book a richer story than one that centres just on train travel or the countries they visit. Things get personal as she explores history, culture and the individual stories that have touched the characters they meet.
“Trains are rolling libraries of information, and all it takes is to reach out to passengers to bind together their tales.”
Monisha Rajesh — Author of Around the World in 80 Trains
Some stories are hard-hitting, they leave you questioning what humans can endure and what we are capable of. Like the story of Tsutomu Yamaguchi — a ‘double bomb’ survivor. In his desperation to escape Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb, he fled to Nagasaki on one of the trains departing the same day. Hoping for salvation Yamaguchi stumbled across the second bomb and miraculously lived to tell the tale. These are stories of humanity even in the most dire circumstances.
“The human capacity to hurt one another was so great and unstoppable… Every country has a history of war, but Japan’s had caught me off guard. The inhumanity of the bombs had burnt a hole in the Japanese soul”.
Monisha Rajesh — Author of Around the World in 80 Trains
A book of beautiful, rich descriptions
Rajesh’s writing is wonderfully descriptive and elegant — something I admire as I writer and unashamedly covet. Her work is observant, smart and witty. It draws on history where appropriate but doesn’t just list fact after fact. It’s always woven into the story and the lives of real people.
“To my mind, there is no point in leaving home if the intention is to take home with you. To recoil from anything new and unnerving is to do a disservice to your hosts, but more so to yourself. Being willing to try another person’s way of living is the first step towards developing a spirit of empathy.”
Monisha Rajesh -Author of Around the World in 80 Trains
But she’s also not afraid to speak her mind or look inward and criticise herself. Rajesh highlights an awareness that she is a tourist and with that, she is only temporarily taking part in someone else’s lives. That temporary nature means we can’t know every facet of every story. We can’t draw simplistic conclusions because there’s more to every story beneath the surface.
In many ways, her attitude is admirable. But personally I sometimes found her bluntness a little frustrating. On occasion I found myself wanting a more balanced perspective at times.
“Tour groups to my mind comprise people who lack the initiative to discover a new place, relying on parroted information that may or may not be true. These are the same people who take cruises, happy to be herded on and off a boat, then bussed around like schoolchildren, reassured by the knowledge that wherever they go is pre-paid and safe for consumption.”
As a reader of travelogues, I want to get to know the author — who they are, what they like and what they don’t. But at times I found it difficult to connect with Rajesh when she spoke so negatively (see quote above). Perhaps her honesty was too brutal for me. I’ve always been one to avoid confrontation and am eager to please (the British stereotype right here).
There’s a few things I can learn from Rajesh: to speak up for myself and not worry what others thing. But I also hope to still maintain a balanced perspective of the world and be open to alternative views. For example, I know plenty of people that love a good cruise. This isn’t because they want a measured view of the world. It’s because they want to relax. Our lives are so busy and chaotic. Some people don’t love to plan their holidays but instead find comfort in the structure and comfort of a trip that’s been arranged for them.
The romantics view of train travel
So, does the romance of train travel live on? A question Rajesh poses at the start of the adventure. She wonders if bullet trains, commuters and cheap air fare’s have taken something away from the industry. For Rajesh, there’s no question by the end — the romance of trains will live on. She is genuinely passionate about train travel and her attitude is infectious.
“No other mode of transport combined my two favourite pastimes,” Rajesh writes: “travelling the world and lying in bed.”
For me too, I think there’s something unique about long-term travel in this way. I’ve been on plenty of overnight trains and buses. I’ve spent days travelling about in one metal box or another. In those moments I’ve found a complete contentedness from staring out the window into some unknown place. Every glimpse is a moment of another life. Even if it’s caught in the blur or whoosh of high-speed transport.
But what really made me connect with Rajesh’s view on train travel was the way she described her interactions with strangers.
Train travel lives on, “in the passengers who would always tell their story to strangers, offer advice, share their food, and give up their seats”.
In these moments you bond to a complete stranger. A stranger whose paths you were unlikely to cross. But chance brought you to the same train carriage or neighbouring seats on a plane or a bus. You strike up a conversation: starting with the basics of your life and what you’re doing there. Then where you’re going and what you hope for. And before you know it, after hours in that shared space, they become part of your family. Your “train family” as one traveller told Rajesh in Thailand.
I experienced this with my ‘Camino family’ when I walked the Camino de Santiago. Maybe something about slow travel binds people in ways like no other.
Have you read Around the World in 80 Trains? Tell us what you think?
Originally posted on Sage Adventures travel & wellness lifestyle blog: www.sageadventres.co.uk.
