The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia

by Paul Theroux

The Orient Express, once unique for its service, is now unique among trains for its lack of it.

featurelessness is the steppes’ single attribute,

At my lowest point, when things were at their most desperate and uncomfortable, I always found myself in the company of Australians, who were like a reminder that I’d touched bottom.

It is an old country; everywhere in the gleaming modernity are reminders of the orthodox past—the praying steward, the portraits, the encampments of nomads, and, on what is otherwise one of the best-run railways in the world, the yearning for baksheesh.

“I think it’s only fair to say,” I said, wondering how I was going to finish the sentence, “that I’m not, um, queer. Well, you know, I don’t like boys and—”

He enjoyed telling stories against himself. The best one concerned a blonde he had picked up in an Istanbul bar. It was midnight; he was drunk and feeling lecherous. He took the blonde home and made love to her twice, then slept for a few hours, woke up and made love to her again. Late the next day as he was crawling out of bed he noticed the blonde needed a shave and then he saw the wig and the man’s enormous penis.