Steam trips, wrote Joseph von Eichendorff once, “shook the world tirelessly like a kaleidoscope, where the passing landscapes, before any physiognomy can be grasped, always cut new faces, the flying salon always forms different partnerships before the old ones are overcome “. The romantic did not mean that positively at all; In view of the acceleration of public life, all experiences would fall by the wayside. Today, traveling on rails stands for the opposite: deceleration, conscious experience, a kind of return to the fact that there are “no real beginnings or ends”, “that the world is really small and connected”. At least that’s how the British journalist Monisha Rajesh, born in 1982, sees it.
After getting on 80 trains to travel 40,000 kilometers through India, her parents’ homeland, “hanging from train doors, balancing on steps and sleeping on mountains of laundry,” Rajesh was hooked. Back at her home in London, she could not stand the standstill for long – and immediately worked on the next plan: Again there should be exactly 80 trains, but this time it was more than just a country to see, and not alone, but with her fiancé. So her route took her via Europe to Russia, Mongolia, China, Vietnam and Thailand. From Japan by plane to Canada, on to the USA and back to Vancouver, then fly back to Asia for a ten-day round trip by train through North Korea.
Monisha Rajesh and her fiancé Jeremy traveled to Tibet on the Tibet Express. Interesting for the fellow travelers: the pictures that the couple has on their cell phones.
(Photo: Marc Sethi)
This is where the book begins to get interesting. Until then, one had the impression that Rajesh was working off her “bucket list”. People get on, change and disembark, they say a lot about the comfort of the trains and the offers on the menu, while they learn little, at best superficial, about the places where they and their companions stop. Nevertheless, the reading is pleasant, not least because it takes you back in your mind to a time when you could still move freely through the world and talk to strangers without having to adjust the protective mask every few minutes and with every accidental touch Rummage out disinfectant. The first half of the book is mainly about intercultural encounters, about the people Rajesh and her fiancé meet and who – whether voluntarily or not – would “change the fortunes of the trip” and become “part of their narrative”.
China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Poland. And a quick stop in Venice
This picks up speed when the two land in Pyongyang. The outward flight to the North Korean capital is already adventurous – Air Koryo is on the list of unsafe EU airlines. During their flight, passengers can hear and see excerpts from parades and concerts by Kim Jong-Un’s favorite band, the Girl Group Moranbong, the propaganda classics for the best. The notorious Koryo burgers, “which supposedly contained rat and dog meat and all sorts of things”, are served. Rajesh and her fiancé Jeremy travel through the isolated country with an international group. At their side, besides the tour guide, are always two local supervisors whose “job was less to look after the tour groups than to control them”. It is not a journalistic journey that Rajesh takes, and yet she describes her experiences – which make up the most exciting part of the book – with the necessary critical distance.
Back in Beijing, the Tibet Express takes them to Lhasa, where altitude sickness is troubling them. From there they slowly start their return journey via China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Poland, Germany and Italy. A short stay in Venice before heading home to the legendary Venice Simplon Orient Express rise who feel like extras in an adaptation of Agatha Christies Murder on the Orient Express to be paying dearly. For Monisha Rajesh, it is the well-deserved end to a seven-month journey that has not always been comfortable. Ultimately, however, the only thing that counted for her was the view out of the window of the trains, with which she closes the arc back to romance: “Trains were a connection to the past and a portal to the future. And for me? For me, they will always be a window into the soul open a country and its people. “
Monisha Rajesh: Around the world in 80 trains. My 70,000 kilometer adventure on rails. Translated from the English by Angela Jacobsen. Edel Books, Hamburg 2021. 400 pages, 17.95 euros.