Ghost Train to the Eastern Star - Paul Theroux

After racking my brain over the cosmos I wanted to experiment with some new genre of books, and so I ended up picking up this travelogue. All these years I never tried reading any travel books, reason being I always felt that travel is something you should be doing and not something you sit at home & read about. And so I kept my distance from the travel magazines or books. But with this book my perspective has changed a bit. I still feel that travel is something you should be doing, but I guess it is something you can read about as well.


This book is a very light read, its like chatting with somebody who is narrating his travel experiences, where all he went, how did he travel, whom he met, some conversations he had, some history about the place, how it has changed since last he was there, how he felt about the place now. The route he has taken starts from London, through Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan & finally via Russia back to London. So basically he has covered many Asian & some European nations. He is actually retracing his path, taken some 30-40 years back.


It gave me an insight regarding life in these countries. I mean we always hear about life in USA, UK etc, but quite rarely about life in other countries. So it was pretty enlightening & shocking at times. For instance, up until 2006, Turkmenistan was ruled by Turkmenbashi, who was such a megalomaniac that he had even renamed days of week and months name on himself or his family members names. It left me wondering in which era are we living! Then his visit to Cambodia's killing grounds, etc was quite poignant, with people still recovering from the tyranny of Khmer Rouge. For that matter all these countries, have had some or the other debilitating history, fraught with sufferings of people, as more or less all these nations were involved in some or the other kind of war or colonial rule. Its how far they have reached since those times that matters now. For instance, after being flattened out by the nuclear bombs, Japan is now one of the most developed nations. Has gone a long way since then!

I could very well relate with his experiences in India for obvious reasons, & his conclusion regarding India was just so apt. “Too many people”!

There were a couple of things that irked me a little. In one place author has met up another of his author friend & along with sight seeing, they are discussing other authors. So kinda put in his personal views regarding other authors. Secondly every place he went, he had to write about the brothels & prostitutes over there, as if he is researching on that subject. There are so many other facets which could have been explored. He could have put in those instead to break in the monotony.

Anyway, apart from these points, rest all was very pleasurable to read. Loved the way author has penned down his journey. He mentioned that he likes to travel alone. That must be something - stranger in strange lands, meeting and befriending new people, observe - assimilate - write.