Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is a 2008 traintravel book by Paul Theroux. In this book, he retraces some of the trip described in The Great Railway Bazaar. He travels from London, through Europe on the Orient Express and then through Turkey, Turkmenistan, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Japan before making his way home on the Trans-Siberian Railway. He realizes that what has really changed compared to his first trip is himself and not just the countries. Theroux was 33 years old at the time of the first book, and twice that age for the second trip. In his trip Theroux encounters beauty and kindness but also various troubling and dysfunctional countries, plagued by poverty, over-crowding, dictators and government control and oppression. This book is similar in concept to Dark Star Safari, his account of returning to see how Africa had changed, in the long interval since his time of living and working there while an early member of the Peace Corps. Theroux's travel coincides with the early part of the American invasion of Iraq. A previous book, The Happy Isles of Oceania, coincided with the First Gulf War. Theroux includes his experiences with people and their reaction to these wars in his work.
Encounters with literary figures
In the course of his travels, Theroux arranges meetings with several noteworthy figures of the literary scene. In Istanbul, Turkey, Theroux encounters writer and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Orhan Pamuk. He also meets briefly with Elif Safak. In Sri Lanka, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke agrees to a visit from the author. Haruki Murakami, Japan's most widely read author, spends several days with Theroux, guiding him around various Japanese cities and landmarks. Before leaving Japan for Russia, Theroux explores the area around the city of Nara with Pico Iyer.
Sir Michael Edward Palin is an English actor, comedian, writer, and television presenter. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. Since 1980, he has made numerous television travel documentaries, and is a widely recognised writer and presenter.
Around the World in Eighty Days is an adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in French in 1872. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a wager of £20,000 set by his friends at the Reform Club. It is one of Verne's most acclaimed works.
Paul Edward Theroux is an American novelist and travel writer who has written numerous books, including the travelogue The Great Railway Bazaar (1975). Some of his works of fiction have been adapted as feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast, which was adapted for the 1986 movie of the same name and the 2021 television series of the same name.
The Orient Express was a long-distance passenger train service created in 1883 by the Belgian company Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) that operated until 2009. The train traveled the length of continental Europe, with main terminal stations in Paris in the northwest and Istanbul in the southeast, and branches extending service to Athens, Brussels, and London.
Hippie trail is the name given to the overland journey taken by members of the hippie subculture and others from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s travelling from Europe and West Asia through South Asia such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh to Thailand. The hippie trail was a form of alternative tourism, and one of the key elements was travelling as cheaply as possible, mainly to extend the length of time away from home. The term "hippie" became current in the mid-to-late 1960s; "beatnik" was the previous term from the later 1950s.
Batticaloa is a major city in the Eastern Province, Sri Lanka, and its former capital. It is the administrative capital of the Batticaloa District. The city is the seat of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka and is a major commercial centre. It is on the east coast, 111 kilometres (69 mi) south of Trincomalee, and is situated on an island. Pasikudah is a popular tourist destination situated 35 km (22 mi) northwest with beaches and flat year-round warm-water shallow-lagoons.
The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs.
Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin is a 7-part BBC television travel series first broadcast on BBC1 in 1989. It was presented by comedian and actor Michael Palin. The show was inspired by Jules Verne's classic 1873 novel Around the World in Eighty Days, in which a character named Phileas Fogg accepts a wager to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days or less.
The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia is a travelogue by American novelist Paul Theroux, first published in 1975. It recounts Theroux's four-month journey by train in 1973 from London through Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, and his return via the Trans-Siberian Railway. The first part of the route, to India, followed what was then known as the hippie trail. It is widely regarded as a classic in the genre of travel writing. It sold 1.5 million copies upon release.
This is a chronology of the early European exploration of Asia.
The Old Patagonian Express (1979) is a written account of a journey taken by novelist Paul Theroux. Starting out from his home town in Massachusetts, via Boston and Chicago, Theroux travels by train across the North American plains to Laredo, Texas. He then crosses the border and takes a train south through Mexico to Veracruz where he meets a woman looking for her long-lost lover. He then takes the train south into Guatemala and then El Salvador where he goes to a soccer match and is amazed by the violence. He then flies to Costa Rica where he takes the train to Limón and Puntarenas. He ended his transit of Central America in Panama where he takes the short train ride across the isthmus. Theroux then proceeds to Colombia and then over the Andes and finally reaches the small town of Esquel in Patagonia. He endures harsh climates, including the extreme altitude of Peru and the Bolivian Plateau, meets the author Jorge Luis Borges in Buenos Aires and is reunited with long lost family in Ecuador.
The Sri Lanka Railway Department is Sri Lanka's railway owner and primary operator. As part of the Sri Lankan government, it is overseen by the Ministry of Transport. Founded in 1858 as the Ceylon Government Railway, it operates the nation's railways and links Colombo with other population centres and tourist destinations.
Udarata Menike is a daytime passenger train that runs between Colombo and Badulla in Sri Lanka.
The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards celebrate the best travel writing and travel writers in the world. The awards include the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year and the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing.
Olivier Weber is a French writer, novelist and reporter at large, known primarily for his coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has been a war correspondent for twenty-five years, especially in Central Asia, Africa, Middle-East and Iraq. He is an assistant professor at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, president of the Prize Joseph Kessel and today ambassador of France at large. Weber has won several national and international awards of literature and journalism, in particular for his stories on Afghanistan and for his books on wars. His novels, travels writing books and essays have been translated in a dozen of languages.
List of the published work of Paul Theroux, American novelist, short story writer and travel writer.
Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father is a travel documentary/road trip comedy television series that debuted on Netflix. The show is presented by comedian Jack Whitehall and his father, Michael Whitehall. The show covers the pair's travels to various places around the world, encountering silly and awkward situations.
A Passage North is a 2021 novel written by Anuk Arudpragasam. The novel is set in Sri Lanka following the end of the Civil War. It was first published on 13 July 2021 by Hogarth Press in the United States and by Hamish Hamilton in India. It was also published by Granta Books in the United Kingdom on 15 July 2021. It was shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize.
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