For me, Paul Theroux romanticized the notion of riding rails through some
of the world’s most interesting places. I’ll never forget how inspired I was the first time I read Patagonia Express,
how much this made me want to just drop everything and jump on a train bound for the southern-most reaches of the
planet.
Well, rail travel adventure is alive and well.
Here’s an article
about a guy who took the train through one of the globe’s most closed-off and bizarre countries, Burma. The piece may
seem a bit melodramatic at times, but it’s quite good and gives the flavor of what it’s like to be train-bound in a
country most people will never see.