The great challenge in travel is not arriving at the glamorous foreign city, but solving the departure problem, finding a way out of it, without flying. Or have you already had the pleasure of taking one? And I've always been, I think, in a good mood, thinking there's going to be something good around the corner, even if the corner happens to be Gori in western Georgia. Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I were on it. I mean, if there's a revolution, if you get shot at, if you get threatened, if you, you know, get arrested or something like that, that can be very inconvenient. You don't want to do that. It did not instantly think of me as money on two legs. Learn how your comment data is processed. This is Talk of the Nation. Theroux boarded the Golden Arrow, took the ferry to France, transferred to the Orient Express, and rode the rails east to Iran and Afghanistan, India, Burma, Vietnam, China, and Japan, then home again through the length of the Soviet Union. You're in the seat. And keeping that in mind, can you hear me all right? The final extract from the abridgement by ANN REES-JONES Read by BLAIN FAIRMAN (5) Producer GLYN DEARMAN Contributors. She was kind of crazy and possessive. He was a cotton picker outside a place called Merv. CONAN: Thanks very much, George, with us from Warsaw in Poland. Mr. THEROUX: OK, that's great. Get any books you like and read everywhere you want. And Russia, occasionally, to persecute them, shuts of the gas or the oil, shuts off the energy, sometimes the electricity. You come in and they say, oh, everything shuts down. MARTHA: Hi. And I thought, I could stay here for the next two years, you know, at 10 dollars night. Disney World or Universal Orlando: Which Park is Better? Anyway, it's in Georgian and English. The train is still the ideal — show up and hop on. The Great Railway Bazaar is Paul Theroux’s account of his epic journey by rail through Asia. CONAN: Yet, you also write two of the most appalling words a newly-arrived traveler can hear are "national holiday.". Your email address will not be published. Mr. THEROUX: If you like that, you'll love "Ghost Train to the Eastern Star," which is 28,000 miles... MARTHA: Yes. Share your comments below! A train is a vehicle that allows residence: dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer. On Sunday, two rakes packed with 200 SUVs from Kia Motors were loaded on to trains leaving South Western Railways (SWR’s) Penukonda station of Bengaluru zone for Delhi’s Farooqnagar station. CONAN: You rode the Orient Express, but we should be clear, the Orient Express you took was the local, not the luxury, train. When I found that the sleeper ticket cost $4, I became anxious: this was the price of six melons at the bazaar, and a ticket so cheap boded ill for a long journey. Steam would kind of (unintelligible). CONAN: This is Talk of the Nation. Did Mr. Theroux ever find himself in a similar predicament? Copyright © 2008 NPR. "He says that some years ago, an astronaut went to the moon," the student said. If you'd like to talk with Paul Theroux about his travels, give us a call, 800-989-8255. And George is calling us from Warsaw in Poland. Unknown: Paul Theroux Read By: Blain Fairman. What do you mean by that? The first part of the route, to India, followed what was then known as the hippie trail. Mr. THEROUX: Not - in the news, very much so. And I think that the crisis that was in Paris - actually, Sarkozy was part of - he was moving in at that point. Paul Theroux divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian islands. Neal, can you hear me? I'm Neal Conan. But if you take the train from the edge of Georgia, entering through the hinterland, you see it's totally different. GEORGE: It ended that I said, fun is fun, I gave them my card and invitation to Disneyland if they ever let him out of Romania. But yes, a national crisis is very, very helpful to the traveler. I mean, I went through Gori, so - and then I found that the Georgians were incredibly Russia-phobic. After travelling by train from London to the eastern frontier of Iran, Theroux finds himself forced to cross rail-less Afghanistan. There is no mode of transport that has inspired such extensive, reflective observation and commentary as train travel has. Well, Paul Theroux is now with us. The Great Railway Bazaar is Paul Theroux's classic and much-loved homage to train travel. People go to Britain over Christmas and they say, what's happening? 1-43 Summary & Analysis Paul Theroux This Study Guide consists of approximately 35 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Great Railway Bazaar. Terry's with us from San Francisco. by Paul Theroux Frank Muller Audiobook. "The Great Railway Bazaar" also belongs to an English tradition, that of the eccentric travel book whose origins go back two centuries to Sterne's "A Sentimental Journey." And let's get Martha on the line. They have casinos. So, you're sitting there and if you're taking a two or three-day, or, in the case of the trans-Siberia, eight-day railway ride, you really get to talk to people and find out a lot about them. The vaguest plans was a fictor 's Bazaar, in which anyone with the studio in Massachusetts where Paul,. For China the famous Orient Express and Trans-Siberian Railroad as he could weeks go by and.. 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