Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure

by Monisha Rajesh

One of the greatest mistakes a traveller can make, is to believe a journey can be controlled – least of all one of this magnitude.

No one ever told the men not to grope, not to stare, not to touch, not to follow women, and not to rape. The injustice tied my nerves in knots. This was why so few women explored the world with the freedom and abandon of men: they were far too frightened of what might happen at the hands of one of them.

‘The Trans-Siberian was never meant to be about luxury among a travelling elite intent on sipping champagne in a spectacular wilderness. It was to facilitate the resettlement of Russian peasants to Siberia. Did you know that between 1891 and 1914 over five million new immigrants sought a better future there?’ asked Jem. ‘Did you? Or are you just reading out loud from Rens’s guidebook?’

Circum-Baikal Railway, a fabulous old steam locomotive. After the first shower in five days, we had a breakfast of dumplings at the cafe over the road, then set off on foot past rows of shuttered wooden houses to take the local train to Slyudyanka from where the Circum-Baikal train departed. Passing through thirty-nine tunnels and crossing around 200 bridges, the train travelled around the oldest section of the Trans-Siberian railroad. However, we had passed no more than four tunnels and nine bridges before it broke down, conveniently overlooking a bay where we could skid down to the pebble beach and paddle in the icy water. Formed in the middle of a giant crack in the earth’s crust – the Baikal rift – Lake Baikal is dubbed the ‘Galápagos of Russia’ by UNESCO, owing to the unique species of flora and fauna, most of which are endemic to the area. Scientists had predicted that one day the entire continent of Eurasia would split into two along the lake, and I hoped it wasn’t today.

As a people we’d become obsessed with speed, checking our watches, glancing at the clock, running for the Tube, inventing bullet trains, faster internet and instant coffee, yet where was the extra time we were saving? And what were we doing with it? If speed was improving our lives, then why were the days busier, longer and harder, our minds overburdened and tired? Over the previous weeks, the slowness of train travel had replenished my own mind, allowing me to pause and pick apart my thoughts – which it turned out were gratifyingly few.

gezellig, which means that there are no boundaries and that everyone is sharing and getting along with everyone else.’ ‘Is there an English equivalent?’ ‘No, it’s a word that describes an atmosphere or feeling … like we are a train family.’