Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar » (Reprint)

PAUL THEROUX is the author of many highly acclaimed books. His novels include A Dead Hand and The Mosquito Coast, and his renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Dark Star Safari . He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.

Thirty years after the epic journey chronicled in his classic work The Great Railway Bazaar, the world’s most acclaimed travel writer re-creates his 25,000-mile journey through eastern Europe, central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, China, Japan, and Siberia.

Half a lifetime ago, Paul Theroux virtually invented the modern travel narrative by recounting his grand tour by train through Asia. In the three decades since, the world he recorded in that book has undergone phenomenal change. The Soviet Union has collapsed and China has risen; India booms while Burma smothers under dictatorship; Vietnam flourishes in the aftermath of the havoc America was unleashing on it the last time Theroux passed through. And no one is better able to capture the texture, sights, smells, and sounds of that changing landscape than Theroux.
Theroux’s odyssey takes him from eastern Europe, still hung-over from communism, through tense but thriving Turkey into the Caucasus, where Georgia limps back toward feudalism while its neighbor Azerbaijan revels in oil-fueled capitalism. Theroux is firsthand witness to it all, traveling as the locals do—by stifling train, rattletrap bus, illicit taxi, and mud-caked foot—encountering adventures only he could have: from the literary (sparring with the incisive Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk) to the dissolute (surviving a week-long bender on the Trans-Siberian Railroad). And wherever he goes, his omnivorous curiosity and unerring eye for detail never fail to inspire, enlighten, inform, and entertain.

PAUL THEROUX was born in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His fiction includes The Mosquito Coast, My Secret History, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, Blinding Light, and most recently, The Elephanta Suite. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Fresh Air Fiend, and Dark Star Safari. He has been the guest editor of The Best American Travel Writing and is a frequent contributor to various magazines, including The New Yorker. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.

The Barnes & Noble Review

The photo on the jacket of The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia, Paul Theroux's 1975 account of a 28,000-mile odyssey through Eastern Europe, the Far East, Indonesia, India, and the Middle East, is a perfect catalog of antediluvian fashion. Sideburns to the jawline, paisley tie, lapels that could carry a two-seater aloft. Now, more than 30 years later, his re-creation of the journey in Ghost Train to the Eastern Star pictures a polo-shirted elder, with much smaller glasses. How times change. And how they do not.

Contents 1. The Eurostar 1 2. The Other Orient Express 14 3. The Ferry to Besiktas 40 4. Night Train to Ankara 59 5. Night Train to Tbilisi 68 6. Night Train to Baku: The Trans-Caucasian 88 7. Night Train from Ashgabat to Mary 103 8. Night Train to Tashkent 136 9. The Shan-e-Punjab Express to Delhi 146 10. Night Train to Jodhpur: The Mandore Express 164 11. Night Train to Jaipur 182 12. Night Train to Mumbai: The “Superfast” Express 193 13. Night Train to Bangalore: The Udyan Express 210 14. The Shatabdi Express to Chennai 225 15. The Coastal Line to Galle and Hambantota 237 16. The Slow Train to Kandy 258 17. Ghost Train to Mandalay 265 18. The Train to Pyin-Oo-Lwin 283 19. Night Train to Nong Khai 295 20. Night Train to Hat Yai Junction: Special Express 309 21. Night Train to Singapore: The Lankawi Express 316 22. The Slow Train to the Eastern Star 341 23. The Boat Sontepheap to Phnom Penh 351 24. The Mekong Express 367 25. Night Train to Hue 376 26. The Day Train to Hanoi 387 27. Tokyo Andaguraundo 400 28. Night Train to Hokkaido: Hayate Super Express 422 29. The Limited Express: Sarobetsu to Wakkanai 428 30. Night Train to Kyoto: The Twilight Express 440 31. The Trans-Siberian Express 460 32. Night Train to Berlin and Beyond 493