No-one else can describe train traveling more beautiful than Paul Theroux. His book ‘The Great Railway Bazaar‘, which traced the author’s train journey from London to India, uncovered a desire long buried ever since I first saw a passing train when living in Ho Chi Minh City. Like many Vietnamese, I never rode the train. It was not a common type of transport unless we needed to travel over very long distance. But Vietnamese did not travel much if not at all. If we did, we preferred motorbikes, buses, mini-vans and airplanes. Trains and rail tracks were often associated with negativity. Whenever I read about it on the news, I found only train crashes and people getting killed trying to cross over unguarded tracks.
I made an overnight transition from bicycles, motorbikes to cars when I moved to the US. Traveling by train was not an American thing because Americans preferred cars over any other form of commute. The country wasn’t designed and well-equipped to be explored by train either. My train experience wrapped up in a couple of train rides in California from Fremont to Fresno, Fresno to San Francisco.
Things changed when I moved to Europe. Europeans loved their trains and so did I even if it meant cramping myself at the hallway or sitting next the toilet when the train was fully packed. The train was my only way of transportation during my first trip to Europe and the primary transportation during my first year in the Czech Republic when I lived in a suburb and worked in the city. My entire commuting experience prior was slow and unstable from the seats of bicycles and motorcycles or claustrophobic from the compact space of cars and buses. Trains’ monstrous sizes guarantee safety for those who sit inside. They can go to the distance, and unlike modern buses which have to hassle in busy traffic and traverse through flat highway landscape, trains have a monopoly over their rail tracks and pass far more agreeable scenic routes from start to end.
“The train can reassure you in awful places -a far cry from the anxious sweats of doom airplanes inspire, or the nauseating gas-sickness of the long-distance bus, or the paralysis that afflicts the car passenger. If a train is large and comfortable you don’t even need a destination; a corner seat is enough, and you can be one of those travelers who stay in motion, straddling the tracks, and never arrive or feel they ought to…”- Paul Theroux. The Great Railway Bazaar.
This trip was partially inspired by Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar, a wonderful diary, travel book. Pick up a copy today.
I'm a motivation explorer, personality type hacker, behavioral investigator and storyteller. I help startup founders, entrepreneurs, and corporate managers to understand themselves, the people they manage and how to get the best of their people. Specialty is in psychological personality types and brain-based methods. When I don't do the above, I hop around planet Earth with TravelJo.com to learn the Art and Science of people from everywhere and to give you all the free travel and tips and advice in many cool destinations.
My name is Cindy, also rhymes with travel junkie. A friend said I was probably a gipsy in my previous life. One of my many secret missions in life is to convert you to run off every once in awhile.
