Countries Visited: England, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Malayasia, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, Soviet Union

The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia is travelogue written by author Paul Theroux and published in 1975. As the first of his many travelogues, The Great Railway Bazaar introduces readers for the first time to Theroux’s unique style of travel writing.

The book recounts Theroux’s epic four-month journey which began in London in 1973. The journey would continue through Europe, the Middle East, across most of India and Southeast Asia before finally reaching Japan and then returning home via the Trans-Siberian Railway across the entire length of the former Soviet Union.

The majority of the journey is undertaken predominately by train with the odd flight used to connect between countries where no railway connections exist. Paul Theroux’s journey is the definition of ‘It’s not the destination, it’s the journey’ where it feels like more time is spent on trains than at any of the locations that are visited.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as most of the people he encounters on his journey, and the way these encounters are retold by Theroux, feel as if they would be far more interesting than if the writer would have simply got off the train to visit and describe his experiences at each location. Most of these encounters are retold in great detail written in an almost novel like fashion and is one of the book’s greatest strengths.

Paul Theroux isn’t afraid to tell it how it is, often always offering his brutally honest opinions of the people and places he visits. Some of these opinions may be of their time and may seem dated my modern standards but are necessary to accurately understand what travelling by train in the early 1970s would have been like throughout the varied locations that he visits.

The honest way in which Theroux recounts his experiences still feels unique when read contemporarily. You’ll be hard pressed to find a modern travel writer willing to write is such an honest manner for fear of offending the modern reader’s politically correct sensibilities. It’s not hard then to understand why The Great Railway Bazaar is still considered a classic within travel writing.