Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure

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I can relate to the hype and the need to not let hype get in the way of one's personal experience of a sight/site, and still being disappointed.

All through the book the author mentions things photographed and towards the end of the book they even have a travelling companion who is a professional photographer and the photos included are very few. If it disgusts her so much, then she should stop putting herself in those situations; she has that option, as she is doing this for pleasure/work and not because she is poverty-stricken and has to ride that way as her only source of transportation. The quality of the trains varied enormously too, the cool precise efficiency of the Japanese Bullet trains that whisked them across the country to the Vietnamese trains that left a lot to be desired with the quality and reliability. She stood next to the door holding it open as passengers exited the train, and bowed as each one deposited their litter. In North Korea] The chance of an uprising was still remote, as the money and power lay with the upper echelons of society, who were quite happy to maintain the status quo so long as it worked in their favor.

This was a book that took me to many amazing places around the world and helped to (briefly) satisfy my constant desire to travel. They trundle through Europe and into Russia, China, South East Asia, Japan, US, Canada, Kazakhstan and even North Korea. When Monisha Rajesh announced plans to circumnavigate the globe in 80 train journeys, she was met with wide-eyed disbelief. Rajesh has a chatty, witty, conversational writing style, coming across as very open and honest from the start, where she shares the discussions she and her fiance Jem had about the trip before deciding to travel together.

A couple of hawkers started to work their way up the carriage, one selling fish cakes and noodles, the other dragging an ice bucket stacked with cans of Nescafe…A Dutch family swapped a few of their bananas for a couple of my Snickers bars and between us we were managing to forge a pretty decent meal. Definitely focus’ on the train travel aspect rather than the places she visited and descriptions of them - which is what I wanted. On this trip, accompanied by her terrific partner, she brings her warmth and intelligence to each situation they encounter. Such rookie mistakes could have been amusing anecdotes, had they not been formulated as faults in the system itself, with Rajesh taking no responsibility for her own failures.

Here, they do a big loop of the USA and Canada before flying back to China in time for a guided tour of North Korea. She took out time to reach out to the surviving family members of The Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts and has listed in detail about the Japanese technology and traditions including the one with the Geisha. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit.