Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

BOOKS BY PAUL THEROUX

FICTION

Waldo

Fong and the Indians

Girls at Play

Murder in Mount Holly

Jungle Lovers

Sinning with Annie

Saint Jack

The Black House

The Family Arsenal

The Consul's File

A Christmas Card

Picture Palace

London Snow

World's End

The Mosquito Coast

The London Embassy

Half Moon Street

O-Zone

My Secret History

Chicago Loop

Millroy the Magician

My Other Life

Kowloon Tong

Hotel Honolulu

The Stranger at the Palazzo d'Oro

Blinding Light

The Elephanta Suite

CRITICISM

V. S. Naipaul

NONFICTION

The Great Railway Bazaar

The Old Patagonian Express

The Kingdom by the Sea

Sailing Through China

Sunrise with Seamonsters

The Imperial Way

Riding the Iron Rooster

To the Ends of the Earth

The Happy Isles of Oceania

The Pillars of Hercules

Sir Vidia's Shadow

Fresh Air Fiend

Dark Star Safari

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Copyright © 2008 by Paul Theroux

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

For information about permission to reproduce selections from

this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,

215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Theroux, Paul.

Ghost train to the Eastern star : on the tracks

of the great railway bazaar / Paul Theroux.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-618-41887-9

1. Asia—Description and travel. 2. Theroux, Paul—

Travel—Asia. 3. Railroad travel—Asia. i. Title.

DS10.T42 2008 915.04'425 0 92— dc22

2008011436

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Robert Overholtzer

Endpaper map by Jacques Chazaud

MP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The lines from "Tom O'Roughley" by W. B. Yeats are reprinted with the

permission of AP Watt Ltd on behalf of Gráinne Yeats. The lines from

"plato told." Copyright 1944, © 1972, 1991, by the Trustees of the E. E.

Cummings Trust, from Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings,

edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing

Corporation. Excerpts from "Aubade" and "Water" from Collected Poems

by Philip Larkin. Copyright © 1988, 2003 by the Estate of Philip Larkin.

Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

To Sheila, with love

That feeling about trains, for instance. Of course he had

long outgrown the boyish glamour of the steam engine.

Yet there was something that had an appeal for him in

trains, especially in night trains, which always put queer,

vaguely improper notions into his head.

GEORGES SIMENON

The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By

"I'd much rather go by train," said Connie.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Lady Chatterley's Lover