Orient Express is probably the epitome of old world charm and luxury when it comes to travelling by rail. And for an Agatha Christie fan, Monsieur Poirot and Murder on the Orient Express comes to mind. The Venice Simplon Orient Express is iconic, über romantic. A symbol of a bygone age.
In this modern day and age, with bullet trains and daily flights, why would anyone want to delay their arrival?
The Train Wasn’t my favourite thing…
Over the years, I’ve come to love travelling by rail. I didn’t always, trust me. Nothing against trains; I got motion-sickness on planes, boats, and cars, too. With time, better motion-sickness remedies, and a stronger constitution, I now enjoy the relaxation that comes with slower travel. It’s let me see and experience Canada, Japan, Europe, and Asia in ways I wouldn’t have otherwise.
No matter who you travel with, you can always find moments of solitude. Stillness. Time for meditative thoughts, watching the sceneries dissolve into each other, into an unique vision. The point, after all, is the journey, and not the destination. Some say travelling gets you away from home. Yet, when we break from our everyday habits, we come to see who we truly are, in close quarters. Train travel can open us up to parts of ourselves we don’t normally see, entering what Caroline Myss calls our interior castle.
Also it has a smaller carbon footprint than air travel.
In this article :: Canada | Japan | Paris-Luxembourg-Monte Carlo | Italy | China | Thailand – Eastern & Orient Express
Canada
My first recollection of a train ride was the crazy 3-day-4 night NON-STOP cross-Canada trip. If there were any earlier experiences, this one would have annihilated them. Trumped them all. I wouldn’t say it was traumatic; it was certainly memorable. Doesn’t it say something when the crystal-clear distillate of this experience nearly 30 years ago is the length of the trip? 3 DAYS 4 NIGHTS S.T.R.A.I.G.H.T.
We were all very young and my memories of it are admittedly spotty. I do remember it being incredibly boring (imagine 3 kids stuck on a train for that long!). Plus getting motion-sickness really didn’t add any joy. I spent much of the trip with my head gingerly propped up, fearing the next bump or the next turn, praying for the queasiness to dissipate or for sleep to consume me.
And being a little compulsive about showering, I was disturbed about the whole sink-shower experience (aka splashing water). Never mind sharing a public bathroom for a good part of a week.
I’m sure we complained incessantly. Poor mom. It wasn’t unusual for us to travel without our dad. In fact, when we were young, our parents never travelled together, for fear of orphaning us.
The saving grace, for both us and my mom, was meeting a very sweet elderly woman from Nova Scotia, or was it New Brunswick? She spoke to us at length and loaned us her Reader’s Digests. All three of us LOVE to read and I’m sure mom appreciated the golden silence.
That’s the thing, I guess, you never know who you meet. It’s never really by chance, is it? It’s remarkable how people seem somehow friendlier on trains than they do on planes. Perhaps it’s because we are free to move about and we have already decided to take it slow, and take the rush out of the journey.
Japan
The first time I travelled solo by rail was the summer I graduated from UBC. Was that the first time I travelled by myself? I was thinking about that the other day in the shower.
I was on an exchange program based in Tokyo. After that ended, my high-school friend Cathy had gone ahead to visit her grandparents in Hiroshima and I was to head out to meet her.
I was completely undaunted by my rudimentary Japanese, travelling alone, and even my propensity for motion-sickness. In fact I was 110% stoked to ride the famous Shinkansen, visit Kyoto on the way, and overnight in Osaka with my friend Roger. After all, the entire trip, should I change my mind, was only five hours from Tokyo to Hiroshima.
I have to say being in Japan is easy, even if you don’t know any Japanese. A good guidebook and a willingness to communicate with hand gestures and a smile can get you far, probably anywhere; though in Japan, it’s a sure thing. I know I’ve been rescued many times from the labyrinths of some of the larger stations. Like Ueno, where I couldn’t figure my way back to left luggage.
The tourist offices at the train stations are very helpful and the brochures come in English and other languages. The trains are always on time and it’s pretty clear where you are supposed to go. Even in a sprawling station, it all works out.
Be sure to get the Japanese Rail Pass BEFORE you arrive in Japan. I bought the 7-day pass and calculated when to activate it to maximize my money. Even though I didn’t need mine for seven days, it was cheaper than to buy a roundtrip Shinkansen ticket. Plus it covered my city train use as well.
The thing I love about Japanese trains is that the seats swivel so I never have to stress about figuring out the front of the train. It’s not always obvious. Being front-facing helps me not get motion sickness. Because getting sick when you are alone sucks.
Of course, the trains themselves and the toilets are ultra-clean so my anal self can rest easy (which also helps prevent motion-sickness). The seats are spacious and I can just relax. I trust when I am in the land of the rising sun and I like that.
And being Japan, you KNOW you’ll never go without food. And good food, too. Try an ekiben. An Eki-bento-uri literally means “bento sold at the station” or a packed lunch. It is a fantastic way to sample local specialities. I always find it quite filling as well.
Travelling by train from Tokyo to Hiroshima is one of the best ways to see Japan, especially as an introduction to the country. This same itinerary was the one I used for my husband’s first trip to Japan when we went in 2006.
Other train trips – Hokkaido to Tokyo 2009 and Osaka to Kyoto 2015.
PARIS – LUXEMBOURG – MONTE CARLO
In 2002 my husband and I went on the first of our many overseas adventures. We headed to Europe, and Paris, of course. As a side trip, we checked out the fortress city of Luxembourg as a possibility for our next stop after Bermuda, where we were living at the time. We had thought its location was ideal for exploring Europe, a welcomed trade-off for its somewhat miserable-sounding weather and diminutive size (about the size of Rhode Island).
It was fall when we went. Golds and reds greeted us on a cool crisp sunny day. Luxembourg is beautiful. (And I found my most favourite pair of boots there and the best Goku chicken!)
We took the train from Paris, only about four hours away (now with the TGV train service, it’s down to about 2 hours). The ride was uneventful, except it was quite crowded.
4-seaters are best for travelling with friends, or for making new friends. Also great for your bags if the seats are empty. Much better than having to haul them overhead. It is, however, somewhat uncomfortable facing strangers, trying not to stare too much, avoiding eye contact. Ah, those days before ubiquitous cell phone use. It’s not I’m anti-social (my husband sure isn’t). It’s more that I find the concentration required to speak often triggers the onset of motion-sickness for me. And by now, I think we all know how I am with it.
From Luxembourg we went onto Monte Carlo. Now was it from Paris or Luxembourg? So long ago. I remember it was a very nice train. Light filled the cars and lightness was in the air. Our seats did face the “wrong” way and my husband’s legs kept hitting the woman nearby. So we offered our seats to others so everyone could have more room, and headed to the dining car. That’s where we stayed, eating, drinking, and enjoying spacious comfort. Like being in a Starbucks at peak hour, we just kept ordering coffee and tea and milking it, while we played cards.
Italy
We were at the Rome train station A LOT, even when we weren’t going anywhere. We found the yummiest panini there. Tasty and cheap – the perfect combo for stretching your travel dollars or lires, in this case. We were also there because we did go somewhere – we took a day trip to Pisa to see the leaning tower, Torre di Pisa.
Pisa is only a few hours away by train, depending on whether you take the slow, medium or fast train. I don’t think we knew about this and frankly we didn’t care.
My husband had just proposed (at the colosseum) and we were on a high, just going with the flow, literally floating. We just showed up at the station, bought the tickets for the next train, and headed to Pisa. If you are more sensible, check the schedule or buy online at Trenitalia.
The Pisa Centrale Station is about a twenty minute walk from the tower. We could’ve taken the taxi because it was so hot! Instead we decided to walk, following the crowds. Yes, it was hot! We were in Italy the hottest summer in 100 years.
China
By far the train ride I worried about most was the overnighter from Beijing to Shanghai. It’s definitely my prejudice that China is dirty and yes, I was worried about the toilet.
Now there are three trains to choose from: G Category 300 km/h trains introduced in July 2011 (4 hours 48 minutes), D Category 200 km/h sleeper cars introduced in December 2008, and Trains T109 and T110. We went summer 2007 and so we only had the older T trains. Luckily we managed to book one of the few deluxe 2-berth sleepers with a private bathroom. It was worth the extra $.
Travelling from Beijing to Shanghai by train is a great way to save on hotel bills and eliminate the headaches of air travel. The sleeper was comfortable enough and I was happy that the cars were clean and roomy.
Getting through the crowds and figuring out where to go was a little more exhausting than what I was used to with rail travel. I headed for la-la land as soon as the conductor checked our tickets.
The thing missing from an overnight trip, which is a bonus of travelling by train, is the scenery. For the next seven hours, we whisked through blackness. It didn’t matter much, since I was already deep asleep.
Thailand – Orient Express
In the summer of 2013, we travelled on the Eastern & Orient Express from Bangkok to Singapore. We flew into Bangkok a few days ahead of departure, enjoying some shopping, pool time, high tea, and relaxation. Even under grey skies, the beautiful pool at the Peninsula was full. With views of the Chao Phraya River, slow swims and lounging with a drink was the break I needed. We did very little sightseeing this trip, as we had done on a previous trip.
The Eastern & Orient Express takes us back to bygone eras, with well-appointed and elegant train carriages. Launched in 1993, this adventure was the vision of an American businessman.
I watched the landscapes disappear from the cabin, with its comfortable loungers that turned into single beds for the night. The journey took three nights, with a guided tour at one of the stops. As the train rolled through lush forests and tea plantations, I spent my time looking outside, deep in thought, and writing in my journal in the wood-detailed and dark interiors of our cabin. Or I was in the Observation Car, at the rear of the train. With its open window, I could catch fresh air and a breeze, whenever I was feeling claustrophobic inside. We dined at white-linen tables, with crystal glasses glistening in the warm glow. Four-course meals, with local flavours and local inspirations. Every plate was beautifully presented and absolutely enjoyable.
Travelling by train is definitely a different philosophy. It’s not for everyone, or for every trip. Maybe we do it because it’s more economical, more environmentally-friendly (smaller carbon footprint), more romantic, and sometimes it’s just easier. With the world moving at an increasingly manic pace, I wouldn’t be surprised if more people started to seek out normality through a slower way to travel. A more grounded way to be.
Even sitting inside a bullet train, we still feel more connected to the land, more aware of the distance we are moving over, as perhaps a gauge of the inner reconnection we are making. I prefer the ease, watching the countryside pass by, to the jolt of air travel. Now, seeing a country by car….that’s even better.
