Theroux first made this journey in 1973, thirty-three years earlier. He was eager to make comparisons as he followed the old travel itinerary of The Great Railway Bazaar (with a few exceptions like skirting Iran and Pakistan and being able to enter Cambodia as it was no longer controlled by the Khmer Rouge, for examples).
Retracing his own steps affords Theroux the ability to look up hotels he previously visited and people he met thirty-three years ago. He is pleasantly surprised when they remember him and dismayed to learn others thought him a pompous jerk on his first visit.
In addition to writing about a journey, readers get a glimpse of Theroux's personality. I found it curious that he doesn't like people eating and walking at the same time (no street fairs for him). By 2006 he hasn't wanted to learn the lesson of his first marriage - it is self-indulgent to travel for four months, leaving a wife and/or family behind. The family sees this extravagance as abandonment. (Although the second wife was wiser thanks to technology. She demanded Theroux take a smart phone.) My favorite part of Ghost Train was Theroux's conversation with Haruki Murakami about his first marriage. It felt like an honest, soul-exposing confession. The real Theroux came out, author to author.
Theroux also gauges a country's cultural acceptance by their use of pornography. As the book goes on, Theroux's running commentary on the varying sex trades increases.
In terms of idioms, I felt Theroux was overly negative in his descriptions of towns: acid, broken, beleaguered, cruel, crummy, crumbling, dirty, dim, dark, derelict, dreary, dilapidated, disorder, desperate, decaying, fatigued, foul, filthy, gloomy, lifeless, muddy, miserable, melancholy, mournful, nightmare, neglected, poisonous, primitive, pockmarked, rust-stained, ramshackle, ragged, smoky, sticky, shadowy, stale, stink, stinky, sooty, tough, threadbare, unfriendly, ugly, wrecked, wasteland to name a few. But, as another aside, I love authors who use the word hinterland. Don't ask me why. I think it's a very romantic word. ( )

Enjoyable, though less so than, say, Riding the Iron Rooster.

I must say, though, after reading a few of his books, Theroux seems *obsessed* with prostitutes. I may know a little more about the countries he passes through, but I am guaranteed to know what the prostitutes were like. Though he says he doesn't partake. That said, I wonder if he doth protest too much... ( )

A book about travelling, where Paul Theroux wonders about travellers and particularly travel writers and he takes a journey that lasts months trying to follow in his own footsteps from the The Great Railway Bazaar. Because of changes in the world's conflicts he goes to different countries some of the time. He dwells on some countries more than others and is more outward looking in some places compared to others, or is able to be more outward looking. I don't always agree with Paul Theroux but he is always fascinating and his insights are always useful. He is human and owns up to many of his own failings as he travels. The places are fascinating. It is now over 15 years since he made the trip and things have changed yet again but for the moment in time glimpse at these countries and the people he meets this is a must read for anyone who loves to travel. ( )

Starting to read this book gives you the same feeling of pleasurable anticipation as embarking on the journey yourself! The author retraces much of his travel by rail and road across Asia thirty years previously in the 1970s, with such fascinating and romantic-sounding regions like Central Asian 'stans', the Indian sub-continent and Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia and Japan, and back by the trans-Siberian railway. Did he find the places much changed and modernised, or were they left behind in a time warp with everything faded like an old print? ( )

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is a sort of sequel to Theroux's earlier book "Great Railway Bazaar." Ghost Train was written thirty years after the earlier book. The author and traveler recreated the trip from Great Railway Bazaar thirty years later, as much as was possible. What the reader and the traveler found out was that parts of the world that were accessible thirty years ago are now closed.

I thought that Great Railway Bazaar, written back in 1975, was a vituperative account written by a snarky dissipated man who was obsessed with sex. It was a good travelogue but those attitudes of his were what stood out to me. The update was a bit different. In Ghost Train, the author retraces his travels from 1975 in 2005. The trip is different because the territory covered is different. In 1975 he couldn't go into the various Stan's of the USSR and in 2005 he could. In 1975 he traveled by train through Iran and in 2005 he couldn't. In 1975 he couldn't travel through Vietnam and in 2005 he could. He rode a bullet train in Japan, and spent a good deal more time there than he did in 1975. As a consequence of all these changes, the book, Ghost Train is different from the earlier book. Of course, the author is a different person now due to his age, with a more conciliatory attitude that shows in his writing. Don't get me wrong - he is still snarky at times, but it has a softer edge.

This was well worth the time it took to read. It is a grand journey told in a grand kind of voice. I would encourage people to read both books, to get a more rounded picture of the author, but if a straight travelogue is what the reader is after, read this later version of the trip. It is a better, though longer, book. ( )