80 trains to catch: Monisha Rajesh's global adventure is funny, insightful

Rajesh concludes sorrowfully that high-speed trains in China and Japan kill the romance of railway travel

Having travelled 25,000 miles around India in 80 trains (and written a book about it in 2012), Monisha Rajesh, a 30-something British journalist, had sworn never to take on anything so ambitious again. But, back to her humdrum life in London, she realises that the romance of long-distance railway travel has her hooked. So, three years later, she embarks on a seven-month, 45,000-mile journey through Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Canada and the United States, accompanied by her fiancé Jeremy, later to become her husband. The result is Around the World in 80 Trains,