Riding the Iron Rooster

"[Theroux's] books have enriched the travel literature of this century...China, with its guard down, its buttons undone, and its fingers greasy, looks even more magical with a little of its mystery revealed." USA Today"[A] very funny, beautifully written, wonderfully observant, and deeply insightful description of the vagaries of life and politics in China." -- Conde Nast Traveler"Fascinating...the portrait that emerges is a luminous, almost uncanny, and situationally accurate one. Theroux is particularly good at catching the surreal quality of China." The Miami Herald"Theroux's genius is in his clear-eyed rendition of a fresh world and the deeper observations he attaches to it." The Chicago Tribune

Paul Theroux has written many works of fiction and travel writing, including the modern classics The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, My Secret History and The Mosquito Coast. He won the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing 2020. Paul Theroux divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian islands.

The train to Mongolia; the inner Mongolian express to Datong; train number 24; night train number 90 to Peking; the Shanghai Express; the fast train to Canton; train number 324 to Hohhot and Lanzhou; the iron rooster; train number 104 to Xian; the express to Chengdu; the halt at Emei Shan; train number 209 to Kunming; the fast train to Guilin - Number 80; the slow train to Changsha and Shaoshan "Where the Sun Rises"; the Peking express - train number 16; the internatinal express to Harbin - train number 17; the slow train to Langxiang - number 295; the boat train to Dalian - number 92; on the "Lake of Heaven" to Yantai; the slow train to Quingdao - number 508; the Shandong express to Shanghai - train number 234; the night train to Xiamen - number 375; The Qunghai local to Xining - Number 275; the train to Tibet.