Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar

As always, Paul Theroux delivers a full-color picture of the world clackety-clacking by outside his sleeper-car window. His descriptions of the locations that I have visited are spot on; and his critique of many of the isolated places he visits leaves me longing to hop on the next train.
Armchair travellers will love this book. Real travellers can bring it with them and consider it an uncensored travel guide; portraying the stunning and the seedy, the corrupt and the compassionate, the delicious and the distasteful.

I was so looking forward to his new book, but i must say, its a struggle to get through it.. yes,sex seems to be the criteria for his new book and he doesn;t seemed to be enjoying his travels very much, It comes though in the book...

Having loved his first book, "The Great Railway Bazaar", I was eager to read his follow up book retracing the route,as far as possible, he took so many years ago. Since I love train travel which he also clearly does as well, I could not help but enjoy the book. However, he seems to have become something of a grouch in the intervening years between the two books. Travel into tough terrain is much more of challenge for a 60 year old than a thirty year old. That's for sure. The book for content over and above the train travel experience was a bit of a downer. He seemed to feel the need to solicit opinion from his hapless interviewees in the most dangerous countries about their "views" on the Bush administration. What bothered me is that he never seems to question that people living in Russia, Vietnam, and even more fraught places would only provide answers that keep them out of trouble, long after he is gone from the scene. He is so obviously happy that they join him in Bashing the Bush Regime, not even the smallest doubt seems to enter his mind that they are being careful of their continued existence in a dangerous world rather than saying what they think to a stranger, maybe a police spy, in their scary world.

I couldn't put this book down, great descriptions of Theroux's journey and the people and places that he meets and visits along the way.

The famous and grumpy travel writer takes the route he took 30 years ago in The Great Railway Bazaar. A good, but not great read. Spends an awful lot of time looking into the prostitution trade - far too much for my liking. Some interesting observations in general, but not a compelling read.