Author: Paul Theroux

'Ever since childhood ... I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it'

The Direct-Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Delhi Mail from Jaipur, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur and the Trans-Siberian Express - only a few of the evocative names that fill this, the story of Theroux's epic journey by rail through India and Asia -- a journey on which he encounters a huge variety of places and people, food, faiths and cultures, and which has at its heart an enduring fascination with trains and railways.