Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar (original 2008; edition 2009)

If you love to travel you will love Theroux's book. He retraces his path of 30 years ago by train again. Visiting places he couldn't in the 70s and revisiting places he did back then. A real pleasure if you love train travel. ( )

The travels of Paul Theroux, a writer and traveler, or maybe a traveler and writer. This is the book from his travel of the great railway bazaar when he was 20 years younger and of a different mind. This time he is more observant, but also more of a cynic. The last half of the book is far better than the travels through the "stans" where poverty and dictatorship seemed the norm to the crowding of India. When he got to Sri Lanka and he began interactions with other writers and travelers the story gained more depth. Four stars ( )

Paul Theroux undertook the journey he chronicles in his 1975 book The Great Railway Bazaar at the age of 33. Upon reaching 66, he decides to retrace his steps and undertake the journey by train from London to Tokyo and back again.

Inevitably, in the intervening years the political landscape has changed, meaning he is denied a visa to travel through Iran. Instead, he visits Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and the quite bonkers Turkmenistan, dominated by the despotic Turkmen Bashi, who insists on putting gold statues of himself up everywhere while his people starve.

Some of the places he does travel to again have changed quite radically. India and China are booming, although Theroux barely disguises his disgust at the exploitation of low Indian wages by western companies. Others are exactly the same: Singapore is still oppressively censored and Japan is portrayed as bland and arid except in its most rural areas, as it was in his earlier book.

Technology makes it easier to stay in touch with home (Theroux returned home after The Great Railway Bazaar to discover his wife at the time had been having an affair in his absence) although in more remote places his Blackberry functions as little more than a torch lighting his way to the bathroom at night on darkened trains.

Also like his other travel books, Theroux hooks up with other writers to help give him insight into some of the places he visits: he dines with Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul and the reclusive Haruki Murakami shows him Tokyo. It feels like namedropping to a degree, as in other places more modest folks in other places prove just as able as guides.

Theroux’s nose for teasing out points of interest in supposedly dull places and his sometimes undisguised grumpiness give the book a realistic feel: there’s no suggestion that, unlike some other travel writers, Theroux might be embellishing some of his traveller’s tales for literary effect.

I listened to this on audiobook and John McDonough’s excellent narration which really enhanced my enjoyment of it. Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is an excellent example of a master travel writer at work. ( )

I think I've read all of Paul Theroux's travel books and I have a weird dichotomous relationship with them. I tend to enjoy his descriptions of places I haven't been to, and tend to reject completly his depictions of those I know well. I can't forget his description, in "The Happy Isles of Oceania" of Melbourne as being known by the locals as "Smellburn". Really? Was someone pulling your leg or did you just make it up?

So this a retrace of the steps of The Great Railway Bazaar and as such, bound to be a bit self indulgent. We learn a little of Mr Theroux's character, but not much. He seems cold, aloof and solitary, and although he tells us that he spent much of his 1973 trip worried about his marriage, honestly if you've just gone galivanting the railways of the world for a year leaving your wife with 2 young kids, is it surprising if she's a bit frosty on the phone?

However, as I have never been to Georgia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan I enjoyed these chapters. As I have been to most of the places further east, I found it all a bit more problematic

Firstly India. Yes, India has a lot of people living there. Yes, navigating cities like Chennai and Mumbai can be stressful. But you can hardly expect the population to stay at home so that Mr Theroux is not inconvenienced by them on the pavement. And to condemn India's economic progress, which has drawn many out of poverty (although of course many remain) seems churlish in the extreme. As does praising Sri Lanka for its lack of progress - for sure Sri Lanka is beautiful and peaceful, but most of the population would do a lot for one of those call centre jobs he condemns.

If gets worse from here; there is an obsession with red light districts, prostitution and sex, that are glamorised in Thailand and to a certain extent in Vietnam, completely dominate his account of Tokyo (there is more to Tokyo than Love Hotels,Manga and Cosplay believe it or not, exotic though these may be) and Japan generally, and are drooled over in Singapore (but forget the section on child prostitution, which is almost certainly made up). Of course Mr Theroux never indulges - but he mentions not indulging so many times that there is a suspicion that he protesteth too much

And after Sri Lanka it's all just....trivial. He condemns places that have changed. He lionises those that haven't. He rants against governments that he doesn't like .....deservedly in the case of Burma, without enough explanation of what they are supposed to have done in the case of Cambodia, and entertainingly in the case of Singapore, which he really doesn't like (it seems that the Singapore government feel the same about him) and rants for pages about its defiencies, slating examples sometimes real, sometimes invented. But entertaining none the less

But overall, I wish he'd ended his trip before getting to India. ( )

Interesting book, read this one before the first one, a great look into some lesser traveled places, I have been to Kyoto where he visited and while he mentions some of the things it's interesting to notice what he puts down in words, that said the Turkmenistan and Singapore bits were very interesting. ( )