Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 172: Monisha Rajesh

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Monisha Rajesh is a travel writer who focuses on train travel adventures.She wrote her first book ‘Around India in 80 Trains’ after being made redundant, and she wrote ‘Around the World in 80 Trains’ just after her first daughter was born. My favourite of all though is Moonlight Express, her most recent book which is all about her experiences on night trains. Monisha is a lovely writer, and I love so many of the pictures she paints of her journeys. One particular favourite is when she is travelling in India and the train door is open to the elements, and hearing the slap of leaves on the side of the train as it trundles along at just above jogging pace. Also I love the descriptions of dining cars. I flipping love a dining car! Monisha talked about taking her two small daughters on train adventures and I feel very inspired to do the same. I hope if I do that I am as brave as she is in imposing a ban on screens for my small people. I want us to look out the window and see all the little worlds going by.Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Sophia Lus Bexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women, who also happen to be mothers, about how they make it all work. I'm a singer and I've released eight albums in between having my five sons, age between seven years old and nearly 22, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but it can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a little bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to spinning plates. Good day.

It is Friday morning. And this week has been quite off. I think it's quite a tricky week, isn't it? Because we're three weeks into January. It's been very cold and dark in the UK. We've had lots of rain. So that means lots of mornings where you open the curtains and you're like,

and nobody's okay. I think me and the kids have been feeling a little bit more tired this week. That being said, I'm very much enjoying some home time because two weeks from now I will be in Australia. So I know that's pretty jammy. It's going to be all nice and warm. And I can't deny it. I'm looking forward to it.

I start off in Australia. I'm singing at the men's final of the Australian tennis singles, which is exciting. That's in Melbourne. And then I fly to New Zealand for a few dates there. And then back to Australia for a few more dates. So, come on. That's pretty nice, isn't it?

Also, these are my first ever solo shows in Australia and New Zealand. Am I repeating myself? I probably talked about that last week. Sorry, I'm excited. and also my fingers are freezing so it's given me something nice to think about but no here we are in London town it's actually blue sky today

so I can't complain too much about that yesterday it was very wet and I ended up having both things I had planned for work cancelled at the last minute so I went to see Hamnet with my family the afternoon matinee which felt very indulgent while the kids a little under at school

So that was what I did yesterday And what else I've been doing Just prepping and planning really I've got some ideas for music stuff And so that's the next thing I'll be getting on with Anyway, sorry, that really is very, very rambly I apologise I have such a lovely guest for you this week

And actually it's very timely Because she's going to take us away on the train track journey now because that is what Manisha Rajesh celebrates, talks about and experiences. She has travelled all around the world on different train journeys, and she paints in her books such a picture of those trains and what is extraordinary about them and why they're so special. And honestly, reading about some of them and hearing her speak, I was thinking, I cannot wait, I just want to do that, I want to do that in any which way.

with friends, with Richard, with the kids, it just sounds so gorgeous and peaceful and extraordinary and such a little window into a whole other culture, because she's travelled around trains on Europe, India, all around the world now, actually, and most recently wrote a book called Moonlight Express, which is all Sleeper trains. Some of those sound fantastic. She has two little girls, they have six and eight, and she's taken them on some of these trains, and she's taken them on some of these trains. train journeys. So I really think Monisha's going to take you there, but also what I love is that she's come into, you know, travel writing with completely her own angle, her own take. And I don't actually think there's anyone else quite like her out there. Plus, she was super warm. So it was a

lovely chat, and I'm actually really, we did it, we recorded it during the lead up to Christmas, and at one point a bobble does fall off my tree, which just like, oh, so. Sorry, playing past. Very spooky little bobble all by itself. So you'll hear that. But it was really nice even then to be thinking about plans for this year and if I can involve a train or two. So I'll leave you with her and my chat.

And then I will see you on the other side. And hopefully my fingers would have warmed up. Up then. See you. Oh, it's so nice to meet you, Monisha. And I've been absolutely absorbing myself in your description of your train travel. and I actually wondered what came first the travel or the writing because you're such a beautiful writer. Thank you.

It's easy to just be thinking about the train travel and the experience of what you've done. But I really want to know as well your relationship with words and writing. Okay. Well, funnily enough, actually, the trains came much, much, much later. Even after I'd started doing travel writing, the writing itself just came from, I suppose I was always doing bits and pieces when I was. a teenager. I used to always want to interview people. In fact, I remember interviewing Stephen Frye when I was about 15. Who I met... Well, I met... For a school magazine or something. Yes, it was. And I met him at a cricket dinner very randomly. And I just went to at 15. My parents are

cricket fans. It's very genetic. No, it's... Well, and I grew up in Edgebaston in Birmingham just by the test cricket ground. So cricket was very much part of the family. So I, and I, you know what, you've just reminded me, I actually interviewed various other cricketers for the school paper and then it was just fun meeting people and I think that's a thread that's kind of stayed with my books because they're very much about people I think absolutely about people from different places and the trains are kind of a they lend themselves to me actually being able to meet people in a way that I wouldn't otherwise but the writing came about university I read French at university and then I wrote for the student paper I did film reviews for them and then

I knew I wanted to do some kind of journalism so I did a postgraduate when I came to London and then And from there, I just worked at various different magazines and did feature writing. And then it actually came when I got made redundant. That's how the train book came about. I was working at Time magazine and I was on the copy desk doing all the sort of spelling, punctuation and things. And they shifted the whole desk off to Hong Kong. And that was it. And I thought, oh, what do I do?

Do I retrain? Do I, you know, job hunt or should I just take some time out? And actually, it was when I was sitting in that office that I read an article about India's domestic airlines and that they could at that point reach 80 cities. And I remember thinking, ooh, 80 cities, this looked quite interesting. So I pulled up the map. And as I was looking at all of them, I then saw this really, really tiny kind of lines running around like filigree, really tight, like embroidery. And I looked at the key and it said Indian Railways. And that's when I thought, oh, hang on, this sounds a bit more fun. And they went way beyond where the airlines

could go. And it actually was that fast that I I sat there thinking, oh, I could do around India and 80 trains. And then I sort of forgot about it because I lived in India when I was nine for two years. My parents moved back and then things didn't work out. So they came back to the UK. And I suppose I had a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth about the whole experience. So I kind of avoided going back. And then at this point I was, I don't know, 20 years out from having visited.

And I thought, I need to go back. I need to sort of revisit, find a way to reconcile my relationship with the country, I suppose. and that whole idea of around India and 80 trains, but also wanting to go back, just kind of, it just felt like the right time. So I just went. I just bought an Indian Rail Pass and I went about a month later. On your own. So I had a photographer friend with me.

He was a friend of a friend and I felt like I just needed somebody else to be there and he happened to be made redundant at the same time. It just worked out really nicely. So he came along too. But we went our separate ways after a little while and we each did our own thing. and it was nice to both have a companion but also to do quite a bit of it by myself. And I realised within about three weeks that actually it wasn't being in India that was so thrilling. It was the trains.

Because I bought the rail pass just to kind of, as a means to an end, it was just cheap. It was 350 pounds for three months. What? Yeah, nuts, absolutely nuts, including my sleeper trains, quite a lot of my food. And I remember thinking, well, I can do this on a pretty decent budget. And I knew that the trains would allow me to chat to people and get around. easily. But they really weren't the thing that interested me. It was just they will help me do this. And after a couple of weeks, I remember just feeling like whenever I got off in different

cities and sort of potted around, spent a couple of days, I was always feeling like something was calling me. And I just couldn't wait to get on the next train. That's what it was. I just always felt at home back on the railways rather than seeing them as wanting to get me for me to be. And wherever I went, I would always think, oh, what's the next train going to be. And it just became part of the whole process of traveling around was the trains and where they were taking me and who I was meeting and, you know, they were just, each one was so different. Yeah. They were incredible. So were you sort of rebuilding your relationship. Yeah, I think so. And the people who lived there in the stories. I was definitely because each, I mean, each train has got

eight different classes and you've got up to 40 carriages. So you've got first class right up at the top and it can take you up to half an hour to make your way down a train. So if you set off, you're in there literally for the long haul. And I would just potter around. I would go from one carriage to the next, just feeling different things in each one. Some of them were really quiet where all the business people were sitting and didn't really want to chat to each other. They were all on laptops or they're, you know, doing paperwork. And then you'd be right down at the other end where it's really noisy with vegetable vendors getting on. And they're, you know, their scales clanging while they're unwrapping stuff and counting the money they've made that morning.

And it's really noisy. It's fun. But it's a really lovely kind of clamour. And I invariably would end up travelling down in those compartments because people always said to me, are you travelling in first class for all of it? And I said, no, not at all, actually. And for most of the book, I was kind of in the general classes with people because they were just more fun. And people would talk to you a lot more.

When did you realise it was a book? probably at the end of the four months actually because I didn't have an agent, I didn't have a publisher, I just went and the reason I did it with a book in mind was because I just never read anything about India by somebody who was both an insider and an outsider. Yeah, that's pretty fascinating actually. And almost every book I picked up was by

sort of 60-year-old very posh white man and it was always seen from that perspective of the other. You know, let's go out and find these natives and write about their funny ways and their saris and bright colors. And I would always read them thinking, I don't recognize this. I don't see this. This is not what I feel and see and smell when I go to India at all. And it always felt very surface level.

They never really got to grips with people and chatting to people. And I thought I could do that. I would like to actually show a different side, one that I relate to. And that, you know, there's a huge Indian diaspora. you know, one in six people in the world is an Indian, and we're all over the place. And I thought there must be people like me that also want to read books about India

that aren't just about, you know, these very basic things. But it was an interesting process actually getting published because at that point in 2010, UK publishers just outright rejected it and said, we can't see where it would sit on the shelf. And I remember thinking, well, between Paul Theroux and Tim Parks because that's where the railway books are and that's where all my books sit now.

Oh, hello. That's a bauble. A bauble drop. So don't mind. Happy Christmas. But they, yeah, they just couldn't conceive of the fact that railway books might be different from the perspective of a woman, but also a British Indian woman who's bringing something completely different to it. So it was the whole period, it was very eye-opening for me. And what about your perspective of India in comparison to your parents?

and how they sort of presented it to you, like, growing up and this brief time you spent there, the two you spent there, how did it tally with all of that? Oh, I mean, it had changed so much. It was 20 years since we lived there. And I just sort of understood at that point when I was traveling by myself that it was more than those experiences. And in a very sort of philosophical way as well, I sort of put to bed lots of ideas about, you know, people who'd wronged you. and, you know, instances you'd had where you thought, oh, that's very representative

of how Indians do things. And actually it's not. And you realize that it's very fleeting. It's a moment in time. And those things happen all the time. And you can either hold onto it and have your grudges or you can just let go of it and decide that that's not something you're going to stress about. And actually by the end of it, I went to,

I don't know if you've heard of them before. They've called Vipasana meditation retreat. Oh, yes. So it's a 10-day silent meditation. And I went and sat one. Oh, after the, what did you call it, enjoyable clamour? After four months of trains and that noise and that kind of constant stimulation to sit in complete silence for 10 days, just it completely reset me as a person and my ability to just let go of stuff and not allow it to,

I mean, it's about sort of physically not being bothered by things and aches and pains and headaches, and you just observe it and kind of move past it. And it completely changed me. It made me a completely different person. It's pretty fascinating in itself, actually. I suppose, funnily enough, that really tallies with the conversation I was having earlier today because I was talking about my husband Richard suddenly had tinnitus come on very badly during the sort of lockdown. And I think it might have even been come about by COVID.

Who knows? It's listed as one of that, I don't know, 87 possible things that could happen to you. But part of what he had to do was be, what ended up being his, the best treatment was meditation and mindfulness so that he could sit in that moment and let it acknowledge it and not adhere to it, that fight or flight, the freaking out. And our bodies do things all the time. I mean, it's exactly what the core of the person is that. It just means to see things as they really are and to not attach yourself to anything, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing,

because good things are also fleeting. So try not to just observe them for what they are and just move on from it. And it was a really, it really was a life-changing period because once you've learnt the practice, you can use it all the time. So now that I know how to do it, if I can't sleep, I will sort of tap into it and use it again

and I'm stressed on the tube, I'll kind of just start doing it again in my head. It does change things a lot. It must be something that sets you up for so many things because it's so much of what's encouraged with the sort of epidemic of anxiety is absolutely about when you're anxious, your mind is going to the future and predicting all sorts of things and spiraling and if this happens and that, there's a knock on, knock on.

And actually a lot of that, the practice to help you pass through that peacefully is to let the thought come, let the thought go, do not be defined by this thought. It's not being defined by it. It's been quite ahead of the curve in terms of what's more of, I mean, as a more commonplace mainstream therapy. It is and I think it's made a big difference

with my writing as well when I'm feeling quite stressed by I don't really have writers' block because with nonfiction it's there you have the material

you're not creating it but it's just figuring out how to put it in the right order that's appealing to people and it would help me when I was writing thinking this is not how I want this to look it's just not happening

I can't get this to shape and then I would think just observe that it is what it is right now and remember that you felt this once before when you did your previous books and they're there and they work and you've done what you wanted with them and that will happen again and I would just get up and walk off for a little bit have a walk and come back also dealing with children well I was going to say how was this factoring how much I have tapped into that observe it and allow it to disappear of course they don't disappear but it

does help you deal with a lot of parental stress. And just knowing that it's going to go at some point, everything's a phase, everything's a stage, just sit in the moment with it. Well, what was happening in your career when you had your babies? When you had your first baby, what were you working on at that time? I was doing around the world in 80 trains. Okay, so your second book? Yes, my second book. So I went back into work between books.

and then I just kept wanting to go back on the trains. I just everywhere we went on a holiday, I would try and find a train, or I'd hear one like we can now. And I would just immediately think, I love it, and I'd always think, I wonder who's on it, wonder where it's going to take me, because they're just like untapped adventure. They're just so full of potential,

you just don't know where you're going to end up on it, or how or who with. And so finally I thought, I need to do this again. And I wanted to replicate what I'd done in India, but I couldn't find a country that would lend itself to that in the same way. Because if I'd gone to China, which would have probably been the closest, I suppose, I would have had issues with the language. And that was why India was great as a starter because everybody speaks English,

or at least up to a point, most people do. So I didn't really need people interpreting for me, but China was very different. And then I thought I could probably just do lots of different countries, but how would that pan out? And then off the back of the first title around India and 80 trains, around the world, and 80 trains just came in my age and said, oh, just see how far you can get. And that was that. And it ended up being an eight-month trip.

And my now-husband, then-fiancee, came with me, which was never the plan. He wasn't supposed to. In fact, when I met him, I hadn't sent the proposal off. And I sat on it for nine months because I thought, if I sell this, then there's no reason for me not to go. but I'm not up for long distance or what and also who knew how it was going to pan out and I thought let me see how this plays out and once that's sorted out then I couldn't go do this and then we got engaged in a week later I was like right I'm off great locked that down that's all fine and he said okay cool I'll come out and do bits with you at some point but as I was leading up to the sort of departure I had a huge map on our wall with pins I just literally put pins in all my bucket list places and the great wall of China You know, Japan, Hiroshima, I got North Korea because I found out that there was an option to do a trip into there on a train. And Canada and just so many different spots. And there were trains for every single one of them.

It was extraordinary to see how far you could get by railways. And he kept looking at it. And every week there'd be a new PIM and a new line. And then finally he went, I really just want to come to do the whole thing. And fortunately, he was in a position where he could just rent a. out his flat and said, he said, like, I hate my job, I need to rethink things. And he came. And I said, fine, you can come, but you sit quietly in a corner. You don't interrupt me. You let me do my thing. This is not just an extended holiday. This is actually work.

But it was great. It was a really lovely thing to have done before having children, because I cannot imagine that kind of travel now until retirement, probably, eight months of travel. It just wouldn't happen. No, I mean, I've been looking dreamily off into the distance at your description, but I did not, my children were not part of the dream. No, they're not. And I think it would just be, but I think because we did that, we've never had any point in the last 10 years of thinking, I need to quit my job and go off.

Again, we covered a lot of ground. That's extremely. You've done things and been to places that people can only dream of. I mean, that's an extraordinary. I mean, I do always think privilege of travel as, you know, and I never lose that joy of that. But then I haven't done what you've done in the indulgence of the letting the journey be part of your experience rather than a means to an end. And also you said, oh, you said your husband, just let me do my thing.

So what did that look like? What, why can, why do you have to be quiet? What's necessitating that? Is it because you're sat there observing, you put the window. Very much so. When you want to speak to people. So much. When you want to write.

Yeah. I mean, it's very true. when you're traveling, knowing that you've got the writer's mindset on, because it's work. You have to actually work at it. And quite recently, somebody wrote to me saying, he just read my last book, Moonlight Express, which is all about sleeper trains. And he said, it just occurred to me how much you were at work when everyone else was just enjoying their journey.

And I thought, gosh, someone's actually picked up on the fact that when everyone else went to sleep, I didn't sleep for most of those journeys, not because of the trains or any other reason but because I was taking in what was going on. I needed to see what was outside the window at dark. I needed to know what buildings we were passing by, what lakes I was seeing. I needed to know what that mountain range was and I had to note all of it with so much precise detail because train journeys can be quite fleeting as well. And if I just sat back and thought, I'm going to enjoy this ride, it would be gone and I would have had nothing to talk about and I needed to find people. I needed to talk to passengers.

And it's not always that easy to just walk up to a stranger and start asking about their life. And why are you on board and where are you going? And why are you on this train? And who's this person sitting with you? It's tricky. It's actually quite hard to do all of this. And I was always sitting there thinking, this has to be a chapter. I need about 5,000 words out of this journey tonight.

That's true. And also it can't just be. And then we got on another train and that took about four hours. And then there was another one. And, you know, I have to find the dining car. I've got to try the food. I've got to, and I need my conversations. Your descriptions of dining car.

They're so good. I mean, I totally understand that because that is where the fabric is. That's what the story is. Otherwise, it's just a series of logistics and schedules. And by painting that picture around you, you're inviting someone to sit alongside you. What am I seeing, you know, I remember there was a description you did about a train journey in India where the leaves are like slapping the edge of the train and the doors are open because that's what you sit in, the standard class, so that the doors are open and you're kind of going just above jogging pace and see through the windows. And if you're in a more premier carriage, then the windows are tinted and the air conditioning is absorbed. Yeah, exactly that.

I'm just thinking, well, you need all that. You need all that world around you so that you're there. You can picture, you know, the door sliding open and oh, here's the dining. car and oh good we sat in here early because later on it would be full up and the other families kind of all that stuff exactly that and i think what i i always want my readers to i don't write thinking they're going to go and do this because so many people um don't they read the books as armchair travelers and i really really understood that during lockdown when i had more emails than i'd ever had from anyone um during that period of people saying i you know obviously we

can't travel now and it's really something i need I need to actually do this. I'm too old to go and do any of these things. And I would get emails from, you know, 88-year-olds saying, I once did this 40 years ago. And it's really nice to read it because I could never go back. I'm just not able to go back. Or, you know, my partner's passed away. I met a lot of people like that, a lot of retirees who said, I'd always decided to go and do this with my other half.

And then they'd hide. And we want to actually get these trips done when we can and when we're still able to. And little things, like people would write to me saying, how easy is it to climb up into a berth? Is there a ladder? Would I be able to get the bottom one? And it made me so much more aware when I then did the next book about the things that people really need.

And I had a wheelchair user write to me last week saying, I'm just reading, I said, I'm listening to your audiobook. And I'm assuming that the trains in Europe are not particularly accessible. And I wrote back saying, no, actually the Scandinavian ones are. I said, I'm not in time. certain about the others. But that's something I also do now. I make sure I go up and down the train seeing how accessible they are. Are there wide corridors? Are there, you know, wider toilets? Have you got facilities for people in a way that I probably didn't when I was doing

the India one? Yeah. It just didn't occur to me. Like you were saying about privilege earlier, your traveller's privilege, you don't often think there is someone out there who absolutely can't do this, not even if they, you know, tried or wanted to. And it's, it all plays into the research of what I'm looking at when I'm on board. And also talking to other people as well. I've chatted to wheelchair users about how easily they found it. You know, would they recommend it to other people, how they've gone about doing the booking. And, you know, people were children as well. People were dogs. You know, I didn't know that you have to book out the entire compartment if you have a dog. Because someone else might not like your doggy. So there's a really sweet

woman in Sweden, I remember, who had the most beautiful dog. And she's like, no, she said, it's a bit lonely though because you have to be in a four-person compartment on your own. So it was just the two of them. I mean, this dog was having great time because he had his own birth. He had his own sleeper birth and he was opposite her and I thought this is so sweet. But it's all kind of interesting detail about how each country does things differently as well. So with that in mind, how did you find it the first time you took your children traveling with you? Because I know they've done quite a few trips and the description of you and I think it must be your eldest daughter that's done some of the sleeper trains with you.

Yeah, she does. Yeah, she does. Sweet and amazing memories she's going to have of, I think it was one you were doing through Italy and getting up on the ferry. Exactly that one. It just sounded so gorgeous. It was, I think that was, I hope the younger one doesn't ever listen to this. I think that was one of my favorite journeys with doing it with her.

Because it was the first time, she did kind of cross that boundary of just being my child to being my little pal. She was, she was just the best. traveling companion. We decided to meet her dad and her sister in Palermo because, oh, the little one at that point was a complete nightmare, and we had many tantrums. And I thought, oh, putting her into a compartment overnight, I just don't know what's going to happen. So I can't face that. So my husband flew out to Palermo with her. And I took Ariel, who was five at the time, almost five, and her godparent, who is one of my best friends from work. And the three of us went together. And it was really nice, because the Italian trains have

got triple compartments. So the three of us were sort of slotted in one of the other. Triple as and literally a triple bunk. Yeah, literally triple bunks. And if there's just two of you, they just fold away the middle one. And so it's, and then you can open them up. So you've got six if you've got adjoining compartments of family. So we did from Venice to Rome on a sleeper, there's the three of us. And then he had to head back home. So we carried on just together. And I remember that journey so vividly, I've heard these little stripy pajamas. And it was quite late. It was 11 o'clock at night when we got on and she was very sleepy and a bit cranky. And then as soon as we sat off and she started to sit at the window and look out at

what was going on, she completely parked up. And I was watching her thinking, God, I hope this is genetic. She's going to enjoy staring into people's houses and watching what's going on. And she spent about an hour until midnight, just watching it all. And it was really lovely to see, just watching from a child's perspective of what she was noticing and what she was fascinated by. and, you know, that thing that children do are just waving at complete strangers on platforms

and they'd always wave back. And even that, that kind of little connection of trains and people, was so nice to watch. So I spent a lot of time just watching the journeys through her. And then when we woke up in the morning, so this train, which you mentioned, is it's a sleeper from Rome down to Palermo.

Takes about 12 hours. Oh no, hang on. It leaves at 8 o'clock at night, gets in at night. Yeah, so 12 or 13. But it's a really amazing train and it's very unique in that it separates. The carriages all get uncoupled and then they slide them onto a ferry. And then the ferry crosses in 20 minutes and then they couple the carriages again and set off. And a lot of people don't realize it's happening because they sleep through it.

And they just feel that they're being shunted around and most people sleep on the ferry in the train. But we jumped down and we went up to the top deck and Errol was just so tickled by the fact that you could look into the middle of the ferry and see the carriages and see people. through the window just opening the curtain and looking absolutely perplexed at the fact that there were people looking down from above. Because not everyone knows that that's how they do. Even the people on the train. No, they had no idea that it actually completely separates and then rejoins. That's unusual though, to take them and then put them side by side like that.

They're literally in side by side on a ferry. I mean, the construction of all of it. It's so clever. It is so clever. And I was never someone that, and I'm very honest about it in my books. said it a couple of times, I do not know anything about engines. I don't know about break rigging. Don't think that I'm going to be excited by whatever class. I met this really sweet chat the other day who we've been chatting. I chat to all kinds of train people, but he was so

enthusiastically telling me about this wooden carriage back from sometime in the 19th century and it's running again. And I was just sitting there looking at him thinking, God bless you for being so into something and having this passion but you're definitely talking to the wrong past. Also not to be confused with train spotting I'd imagine as well. No, no. Really, have you ever seen the B3-5? Oh, it's so funny. That's not really my vibe.

It's just not my vibe. And while I, you know, I appreciate Steam engines and how lovely they are for, you know, very many different ways, I'm about the people. Because the people are, they make my journeys. and I could be in the most beautiful train ride in the world, but if there's no one to chat to or get stories out of, or she just could have bounced ideas off. It makes it very different.

It's a very different experience. And sometimes you can go through a really sort of dull stretch of scenery for hours at a time, but you've got six really cool people in a mixed compartment, all strangers, who just start chatting and will tell you all kinds of stuff. Well, I guess you all come into the setting. I mean, I always think,

whenever I do travel, I feel like you kind of go on to like a sort of standby mode, really. So you're sometimes into action of the bits where you need to show. Your ticket will be standing at the right place, the right time. But other times you can just, I love travelling on my own actually for just that observing. Just watching around you, thinking about where you found yourself, all the hustle and bustle, everything's going on around you. As you say, everybody's different stories, why they're travelling. And so you almost come into it as a bit of a blank space.

basin so far as you can tell people as much or as little, there's more mystery around you, but also you can be choosy about what you share. And I think that's quite nice. It is exactly that. And I think you get that with trains in a way that you just don't with any other form of transport. I mean, when you're sitting on a plane, immediately you're very isolated. You are sitting with your headphones on, you've got one screen for you. You're not sharing screens.

And on trains, you know, someone will pull up a laptop and suddenly six people are watching frozen. who may be against their will. But people do. It's very communal. There's a really strong sense of community when you get on these trains, specifically sleeper trains, because you're there literally for the long haul.

You know that you're not getting off at any point tonight. So you can just relax. There's not that tension of constantly looking out and when's my station coming. You know it's not coming till the morning. Yeah. So you can relax. And I always feel much more relaxed on sleeper trains

than I do on day trains. Yeah. And people, I think people still have that mindset during the day of I'm going from A to B. Yeah. And they don't kind of... It's for the hustle bustle. Yeah.

And they don't really chat to people as much. So it's a bit... A sleeper train, you're in at time. Yeah. And also, I think the people who choose to be on sleeper trains tend to be of a certain disposition. They're quite chatty. You don't really find introverts on them.

Because, I mean, you're sleeping next to strangers. So you're sometimes sharing these little punks and there's someone above you and someone below you kind of... Yeah. Yeah, like you're all kind of sandwich together, those are people sandwich. Because the other thing is train compartments, they're very different depending on your needs. And that's a really nice bit about them that you don't have to share with five strangers. You could be in a four-person compartment.

You can be in a two-person. Or you could have a completely private one. Obviously, the price has changed depending on that. But, you know, you get business travellers who usually have the twin ones or the person just by themselves, who just doesn't want to talk to anybody. But I'm on, I'm going to sleep, and I'll go to my meeting. in the morning. But the four person and six person ones are really good fun because they tend to be people that like adventure travel. They like meeting people. They like chatting. But they're also

generally quite seasoned travellers. So they're very respectful about other people's space. Yeah, I can imagine that. Everyone will get in and immediately they will all move their bags around to make everyone else comfortable in a way that you do not see on planes or any other form. Get your bag in and shut the bin and just sit down. But they don't do this here. And it's really nice to watch. Everyone will make space for somebody else, even if you're in a middle bunk and somebody says, you know, would it be okay if I had that one for this reason?

People generally don't mind and they'll just swap. And everyone does whatever they can to make everyone's life easy because you're all there together and you need to sit this out till, you know, 9-10-mourning. So you want it to be fun. You don't want to introduce any tension, do you? No, not at all. Keep it chilled as possible. And you really feel that.

You can feel that people are. very relaxed about what they're doing. And so when you're talking about your travel and how you can, so much of it gives you this also this state of relax as well and this pure enjoyment of the experience of it and talking to people. Am I right that when you had your first baby then, so you just come off the back of doing around the world with your fiancé and husband, how did you deal with having something that helps you recalibrate,

not something you would participate in for a little while because I'm imagining you had to take a break from travel for it. So I've done the travels. We did the travels through 2015 for eight months. And then I actually took a, I had a break. I don't usually write immediately. Okay. I leave a good five or six months to let everything digest completely

because I think you can often be quite reactive about the situations you've had or the experiences. And I think it's quite nice to just let all of that. Just settle, yeah, and then you start to see the bits that are important, the bits your readers actually want to take away from that, rather than, you know, you're being irritated by something or you felt stressed out for some reason. All of that stuff filters away. And you think this is what my readers are going to find interesting, funny, you know, useful, all of those kind of things. So I had a period of not really doing very much with it. But then when I was pregnant very quickly, 10 days after we got married, which was very much not the intention. but we decided to just see what happened and then suddenly pregnant. And I thought, uh-oh, I've got a book that's due in, you know, seven or eight months. And I just had to write. So I did all the hefty chapters before I'd actually had the baby.

So I did my North Korea chapter. I did my Tibet chapters, all the ones that would involve a lot of outside research and fact-checking interviews with people and all of that stuff. So I'd got the bulk of the hard work done because I knew that I would have no sleep and I needed the lighter chapters to come later. So I'd done about a third of it when she was born. But then I wrote the rest of it when she was six weeks old.

Really? I gave myself six weeks of just chill with her. And I ended up moving back to my parents for seven months. It was just impossible to get anything done. Otherwise, I wasn't sleeping. She was a terrible sleeper. And so I went to stay with my mum and dad. And God bless her.

My mom would come in at seven in the morning, and I would feed the baby and hand her over, and then I would nap for an hour, and then just write. I would just write and write, and my mom would bring her in for feeds, and then take her out again. And she used to actually go to my mom more than me, because she was so used to being with my parents all the time. And so it was quite hard. It was really tricky to write, and I remember so vividly one day when she'd gone down for a nap, having her monitor up, and then my screen and my photos, and looking at it thinking, you've got about 40 minutes to write your best stuff.

And in an odd way, I think it actually helped me really focus on what I was doing because I didn't just have that long stretch of time where I could just muse over things. I knew she'd be up and that would be the end of it for this chapter. And I knew what my timeline was to deliver the book. So it was a lot. And actually when I look back at it, I kind of wonder what was wrong with me. I thought that was a good idea. Because it was a lot to be dealing with, I was probably sleeping about four hours a night.

And she was, you know, eight weeks old. And I managed to get this out in nine months. And it was gone by January. I'd written, in eight months, I'd written 110,000 words. And hadn't slept and lost loads of weight. And not in a good way, it was just sheer exhaustion. But in an odd way, when you don't have any. other option. I really didn't at that point. I needed to get it written and it was due and my editor

was very sweet and said, you know, have an extra few months and it's fine. But it was tricky. But in a way it was also great being a new mum and having something else to focus on because that first few, I mean, you will know. It's just like a mental car crash where you don't know whether you're coming or going and you're just kind of. Yeah, and you're also working yourself that again as well. So it must have been quite a, it was extraordinary. process to think back to this life that suddenly feels like so, so different. You're thinking, well, there was once a time we're like, we just got on trains and, well, my life as I knew it was at that, it was, it was over what I had been was done. That was not who I was going to be again for a long

time. Someone that just went out at six o'clock in the evening and came back whenever I had to, every single minute of my day was around her. Yeah. And it had to be. But I, at the same time, also had this book to keep me quite focused on what I was doing. Yeah. And it helped, I think, remembering that I was still that person. I was still a writer, still a journalist, at the same time as also being a mum now. And both of those things could be true.

I could still do both. It was just much harder. So I was very practical about the second one. What we do by second baby? Yeah. In what sense, what do you mean by practical? Well, oh, I know this sounds completely mad. and I was very lucky, but I remember thinking I got pregnant so quickly with the first one

that I literally planned it to the date of when my lit fest were over for when the second one needed to be out. Ash, I don't think that's that crazy. And it actually happened. I remember because when around the world and 80 trains came out, I then had lit fest, and I knew that they were going to end around sort of end of May, June, and I thought I don't want to have a newborn until that point. So I timed it. I worked backwards.

I don't think that's like crazy. And she was born two weeks after I finished the last one. And then I just completely forgave myself. These things I always work out like that. But it's pretty, I think it's quite impressive. But it's also, it's a funny, it's a funny sort of mental state you're in, I think, when you're in the bit where you're very thinking about babies. And, you know, obviously, if you're thinking, you know, you're hoping that you get to have a baby when you want to.

But with that in mind, I think you do. get into this sort of mindset of, I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's trying to help yourself problem solve or what, but I think I get to completely understand it. Maybe part of the reason why I'm saying, that's fine. It's because I'm not dissimilar. When I had my, so my first and my second, they were both born really early. And I liked the idea of there then being a three-year gap for my next one. Okay. But then I thought, well, the next one, so my third, what if that baby's born two months early? So I basically planned it so that it would, even if you came two months early,

it would still be three years. But then he didn't come early. So he's three years and two months gap. But that's the same sort of logic of, I look back now, I'm like, why did I even think that mattered that much? Because there's so much chaos that comes along with parenting and so many last minute pivots and, oh, that's at the window. And, oh, okay, how do I sort this out?

But I look back and it seems sort of really weirdly naive and also overly like uptight of me to think that that matters. But I guess you're sort of just trying desperately to put some poles in the grounds. I think it is that. Well, it's exactly that. I mean, for so many months, I just, I mean, I would have days where I just felt completely upended and like what is going on. Is this ever, am I ever going to kind of come back out of this? and go back to being able to have some control over anything. Yeah.

Because I just didn't. And I really felt that. And I thought, if this is, if this is something I can even vaguely control a little bit, then I'm going to make life a bit easier for myself. But then lockdown hit. And everything just went out of the window. So did you say your youngest is six? She's six.

So she was actually born in June 2019. Yeah. My youngest is 2019. And then lockdown was obviously six months later. So there was just no travel. Yeah. No travel. nothing going on and it was tricky. But I could see that sleeper trains were having a moment

in sort of 2021 after that whole period. And that's where the last book idea came from. Yeah, which I think it's probably for me the most romantic of all of the ideas of travel because I think a sleeper train immediately evokes this idea. I mean, firstly, there's always something magical about going to sleep one place or working on something else. I think that's But also I do think there's a level of sort of tidy comfort in that long, long form of train travel that you don't get when it's just your commuter and will I have a, this is, it's planned, you've booked your space, you know where you'll be, there's a space for your bag and you can kind of give yourself over to it a bit more. Yes, you can. It's exactly that. It's, it is, it is oddly more structured. You know that this is the time you're going to arrive, you're going to get your breakfast. But for me, the best bit is just waking up. And when, you're the best bit is just waking up. And when, that blind goes up, you just don't know what's outside. I love that. It's the best feeling in the world. You ever try to tour bus? No. No, I don't like buses. No. I don't go from trains

to tour buses, I wouldn't recommend. I mean, I do love them, but just no. You don't get the view. It's not about the vista. No, I can't imagine it is. But the... Or the story. You've heard everybody's stories loads of times. There's no, what brings you here? There's nothing new. Nothing new happening. And what was the first sleeper train that you took for your book, which was the way did you start with that one? So I went, I retraced the original route of the Orient Express.

Beautiful. From Paris to Istanbul. So the first one was a Euro star, which is always the kind of boring sort of in train. Pretty cool, though. I'm glad the Eurostar exists. I am, I am as well. I just wish it was cheaper. But the first proper sleeper was...

It's a very premium train experience, isn't that? Yeah, it is. So the first one was the sleeper from Paris to Vienna, which was such a lovely journey in terms of scenery. I remember I didn't sleep very well on it because it's quite old. But getting into Vienna at 10 o'clock in the morning, and in 20 minutes I was standing in front of the Kiss painting by Klimt. Because this is what sleeper train to do.

They fire you right into the heart of a city. It's very true. It's not an airport way you're somewhere. And actually Vienna's airport is so far out. It takes ages to get in. It costs loads in a taxi. You've got a queue. I mean, the train literally brings you into the center of the city. And you can be out and in a museum in 20 minutes.

And yeah, it's an amazing feeling when you can just, you have a whole day ahead of you as well. You don't have to, you know, faff around. You can go straight out and do whatever you want to. You're not, you know, you save on a hotel. It's just there are. many kind of prose to it. Incredible. I mean, there's so many, my brain is so filled.

You know, I was reading your book and listening to you speak and reading some of your articles. And I was so smitten by so many aspects of your train travel experiences. And I think the two that really, actually, I'm going to have three. Yeah. I really stuck out. The Santa Claus Express as a family experience, just sounded glorious. And as a family experience, so sweet and wholesome.

And I love the idea of going through the snow in Finland and you're back to go and see Father Christmas and how, you know, that's just the childhood. It was beautiful. You get lost in the magic of it all. I also loved your description of the one that goes through. So is that up to Jasper, you said, in Canada, via Vancouver or have I got that bit wrong?

You get on in Vancouver. Oh, you do, okay. Yeah, and then it winds back on itself. The carriage with the glass. Panoramic dome. It's there just in the spring, isn't it? So it's in sort of May, June, sort of time. Yeah, although it runs year-round.

In fact, they told me on board that they get loads of people on Christmas Day because they have loads of people who don't have family and they just want to be a part of something. And she said it's one of our busiest days. And I remember at that moment. Yeah, just thinking, because I said, you know, you probably have no one here then. She said, oh, no, Christmas is one of our busiest days of the year just because people who are lonely want to feel like they're with someone on that day.

And she said, we do a big lunch and everyone gets together. And I thought, oh, gosh, only a train could do that. It could just bring every, literally bring people together who are lonely for that feeling. That's a very sweet image of the idea of them all that there with a glass dome. And then the other one I thought sounded gorgeous, which I actually think is probably the most feasible for me to the only time to think would be the one in the south of France. I think it was sort of canned to like Juana Pan or around the caponti. Oh, the regular ones. Yeah, the passenger ones.

commuter one with the double decker and all the people you said like the commuter train all around there because um i love the idea of the hustle bustle but also when you describe and i do like to do this when i'm traveling because i find a bit like you it kind of stops me getting too into my own head i'll start looking at other people and then i love looking at the window so i mean it was only on the tube but the other day we were looking into people's houses and how many people had their christmas trees yeah the idea in the in france is seeing all these different beaches and people that homes and gardens. So that's so sweet. Well, actually from doing that, because I went interrailing with the girls by myself in May. Just the three of us went off. We just had a girl's trip, which was such a lovely one. How long were you for?

Ten days. Amazing. So we went, again, took the sleeper from Paris to Vienna. And we spent five days in Vienna and took the sleeper to Rome. And then went through Rome up to Florence and then across to Genoa and then did the niece can bit again. And then took a final sleeper from Nice up to Paris and then home. And before I set off, my husband was like, why are you doing this by yourself?

Are you sure that you really want to just go just the three of you? And I said, yeah, because the interrel pass is great. You get children up the age of 11, I think it is, travel for free. So it was really not an expensive trip at all. And we just had so much fun. And how many of these are all day trains? No, there was two, three sleepers. Three sleepers, okay.

Yeah, three sleepers. And the kids were allowed one backpack each, and they could bring one one. whatever they want as long as they carried it. And it was through doing that journey that I spotted one of the best beaches. Amazing. Because the Riviera doesn't have very nice sandy beaches. They're all gravelly. And I remember we were going past Villefant-Chemère.

And I thought, oh, hang on, that water looks very shallow. It's very green. It looks very yellow. And so I made a mental note. And we went back and it turns out it's one of the best beaches on the Riviera. Wow. And I saw it from the train. That was how I saw it.

That holds it a two-hour stretch. That's incredible. And I clocked it and thought, And, I mean, this is a silly question, but is everything always running on time? No. Okay. I was thinking, well, maybe it's just here. No, but you know what?

I was actually very lucky that I never had any big delays or cancellations. So you haven't had any big travel disasters with any of this really? No, absolutely none. Wow. I was really lucky. I feel heartened by that. Well, I didn't do any in the UK and that's why. Well, no, I lie.

I did the Caledonian Sleeper, the one from London up to. Edinburgh. That must be nice. But it was still fine. I mean, it's terrible if you want to sleep. And I have never met anyone who's ever slept properly on it. Why? Just noisy?

It's really rattley. Oh. It's really rattley. It swings around quite a lot and it's just very jolty train. Hmm. But it's still fun. Yeah. It's still fun.

Just to be the right of mind. Nice views in the morning. Well, you know, you wake up to the Scottish countryside. Yeah. Beautiful. Makes everything okay. Oh, I'm very inspired by the idea of the interverbal. with the two little ones.

I bet I think when you said that, you know, they sort of, it's not so much about the parent-child dynamic, but they're little companions. And also by saying to them, you know, this is your bag, put in there what you want. I mean, you're responsible for those bits. Off you go. That gives them a little bit of independence.

They were also not allowed iPads. And my husband just looked at me like I was insane. And he said, why are you doing this to yourself? And I said, because I, you know, if you're doing slow travel, want them sitting there, you know, scrolling away and playing games while there's all this lovely countryside outside. He said, what's the point? And he said, well, good luck. I thought, you know, expecting me to send, you know, feverish WhatsApp, getting there going mental. But I think

it made them so much more engaged. And I organized little things for them to do in each city. So we did a cookery class in Vienna. We took them to learn how to make Zacquad. Then we did a perfume making class in Nice. And then we did a paper marbling in Florence. and they bought themselves a little notebook. Can you just look at this all again? It's been in my name. I'm very happy to, do you know what? Someone said to the other day, why don't you operate a small travel agency?

That's what I was thinking. You really can do that. And put these it things together. I kind of do it ad hoc for people actually who get in touch because I don't mind. Because I've done so much of it over the last 15 years that I know immediately which routes work for people. Is your phone just filled with train apps? I've only got one actually, just the one.

But I quite like. I don't mind doing that for people. I really don't mind because I get, do you know what, I get a lot of messages from single women, often sort of middle age single women saying, I really want to do this, but I'm quite nervous. Yeah, and will I be safe?

Will I be okay? You know, how should I book tickets? And because it can be a lot to sort of negotiate the idea of just suddenly going somewhere completely, you know, with absolutely no research whatsoever. I'm standing of a place. It's quite exposing and people can often and feel quite vulnerable.

Well, you literally is also you're somewhere where everything's unfamiliar. Yeah. And I think as well as you get older, you can get a little bit more anxious about travel in general, not just about, even if it's something you do all the time. Yeah, it just happens. I have, definitely. I've seen it in my mum. It starts a creep in airports, timings, just a bit more jangly around the edges of something.

I've definitely found that when I went back to India in, for this book, actually, I went back 10 years after having done it the first time. And I was on this sleeper train with my photographer pal. And we both just looked at each other And he said, I can't believe you kind of did this for four months. And I said, you've just taken the words out of my mouth because I was just looking around thinking, this journey alone is making me feel a bit anxious and stressed

because it's so rattley and there's so much going on. And I just thought back to how I was when I was 28. I just didn't care about those things. And I suppose the thing that had changed was that I now had kids and you're constantly aware of the need to be present for them and I was always I always have half my brain at home whenever I'm travelling you just do you know even if it's you know midday somewhere in Delhi you're thinking oh she's got pee and quick WhatsApp saying we sort of myos pique it is like yes I've done it

don't worry about it you've done a snack yes I've done it and but you just do it's impossible to completely disconnect very true from all those different elements of your life um but I what of the key things why I have the children in the book is because I can't think of very many travel writers who bring their children in or the fact that as a woman, it's very tricky to travel with kids. I think Dervler Murphy was one of the only women writers who she took her five-year-old with her who features quite a lot in her books. And all the kind of big travel writers are men, really. Even now in contemporary writing, they are men or women who've got much more grown-up children. And I was so aware of that. And I thought, I can see now. Why? Because you can't

just take off for six months and go and explore Patagonia. Because you've got, you know, kids who need you at home. So I had, for this book, I had to really, I had to go off and kind of fits and starts, which made the travels much longer and drawn out. But it was, you just, you have to. What was the longest that you went away, do you think? Two weeks to India. And it was the furthest as well, actually. But yeah, it's hard. It's really hard. And do you like to think one day that your girls will do the same sort of travel, the same scale? I have no idea. They certainly seem to enjoy trains.

They really do. But I think it's something because they've grown up with it. They don't really know any different. And the other day, one of them just rolled her eyes up and went, oh, God, are we going on a train again? Yeah, we are. How did you guess? But they've also got quite spoiled as well because they've been on some of the most fun trains. and the Santa Claus Express,

and then you can get on a southwestern here. I'm just like, oh, I don't like this one. This is the real of educators. Can we be in a nicer compartment? I said, look, this is how, you know, regular people roll, so just get used to it. But I'm very keen on traveling loads with them as much as I can because I read something the other day that said children's,

some of their most hardwired memories for the rest of their lives happen between five and ten on their travels, and those are the memories that they have that the most. when they get much, much older. And I thought, oh, that's quite nice. And I think it's probably true. When I look back at some of the trips I did with my parents when I was a kid, they're really vivid.

Well, look at the one you did when you were nine and how it kind of came into play when you, like, 20 years on. No, it really did. It's the proof. It's literally part of the reason why you've ended up talking about these books. Because, yeah, it's informative. And I think it's also, I mean, one of the things I think was well when there with kids is that actually the time with you, the slowed down, the little vignettes, the little moments,

children are way more, we start off being wowed by all that and being very sated by that. We're not really, it doesn't need to be the flashy stuff. Our kids love it when we go, we sometimes rent a boat and sleep on the boat. It's a bit like camping on water, the same sort of thing. But they love it because it's kind of quite in the doing. And you've got little jobs to do. and you see a totally different side of this country as well. Definitely.

But they don't, I think it doesn't come in at a higher level when you've invested more in it or you've planned more, you know. It's actually coming in and the same part sparking the same bit of your brain, I think. Yeah, it does. In fact, some of the things that they, I mean, one of the things they just wanted to do every time we went anywhere was find a playground. And they're perfectly happy doing that.

And they do that lovely thing of finding other children, and even if they don't speak the same language, and they would find a way to hang out with them for an hour or so while I just sat on a bench watching them. Yeah, it's on sweet. And they were very happy to just do that. They didn't need much else because there's so much general stimulation. Do you think it gives an insight as well

into how well other countries function? Yes, yeah. Definitely. Let me guess, there's some Scandinavian countries that have mailed it the most. Yeah, they really have. The thing is, when you've got very small population, such a huge landmark, you can.

There's fewer people to sort of look after and deal with. I mean, one of the things that really struck me when I was on the finish train was that everything was lactose-free and ovo-vegetarian and gluten. And everything's marked out. And I thought, can you imagine up in an Avanti train? There's a burger and a sandwich.

And, you know, every milk is, they've got seven different types of milks. I thought, God, wow. They are just really soft, though. They've just figured everything out. And actually the truth is. The trains are a really good way of getting those insights into cultural nuances, just in terms of, you know, how the sleepers are laid out, how the berths are put together, the little things that

they give you, you know, the bigger the pillow. You see it. You really see the way they've thought things through. That's what I love though when it's like all the little clever details, tiny little differences that's just enough to give you, oh yeah, that's thoughtful. And actually, the way things tessellate or the way, you know, a table can fold down and all this sort of satisfying. tidy living. Exactly that. It's quite a nice way to be. Well, I'm incredibly inspired.

And I love not only the idea and what you just, the descriptions you paint, but also this sort of quiet travel writer revolution that you've been also pushing as well. I think it's, I'm all for it because I think it's, well, I just find it really inspiring. And if you ever do find you need a little traveler, I can definitely sit quietly in a corner. Sit in a corner, just observing what's going on. Yeah. And then I'll be all perky for our paper marbling in Florence or whatever. Have you done any sleeper trains?

I've only done one properly. And it was actually one of my favorite things we've ever done. And it was between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Oh, wow. And it was very cool. It was a very well-organized train. Everything was incredibly comfortable, even standard class, really lovely, nice seats, gorgeous dining car.

You mentioned the dining carts being so important. It was a perfect mix. of old school glamour so red velvet and little wooden tables but also really brilliant tech so you were a key card for your compartment and so it was very impressive very quiet very hard to climb into your birth I we'd had maybe a little bit of vodka and I grabbed onto the bed to climb up and the thing I was holding on to just came off in my hand oh my gosh I got a very impressive bruise but I did really love it I loved it very much. It was really fun thing for me and the band to do together.

Usually that train trip takes about four hours. They did it together? Yeah, we did it overnight to get from one place to another for another show. And it was great. I mean, I was probably, I'm probably going back over 10 years now, but I really loved it. Oh, that sounds so lovely. Yeah, I'd like to do more. I would.

I think it's a, I like the idea of the kids and the backpacks and the, and, you know, I'll ruin the day I said it, but there's no iPads and all that, because it's such a great idea for just, they just, you just all kind of enjoy things. in a different way. And it worked out all right, didn't it? Yeah, it did. A lot more board games. They kept a diary, which is hilarious to read back over now.

It's so cute. Their little thoughts, every time we finally got to a hotel, they would have a bath, put their pajamas on, and they'd each sit back, sort of scribbling away. And then I'd have a look and photograph it and send it to my husband. Your tiny travel writers? Yes, they were.

And they would write. It was just really funny, seeing the kind of things they'd taken away from the day. I remember the youngest, what the now-sex had raised. written something about mastiffs, this massive dog that we'd passed, because I said to them, don't just keep walking over to dogs. And then one of them said, you know, would they kind of mangled me? And I said, well, yeah, they could really hurt you. And then I came to read what she'd written. She says, I'm not going to touch the mastiffs because my mom says they eat children. And I thought, God, that was her takeaway of the day. Mastiffs will eat children,

so I'm not going to go near. It's a pretty powerful thought for a kid to be there. funny but it was really nice having these little diaries from them because i'll i'll give it back to them one day and i keep the same one whenever we travel i make them do just a little bit so that they can have it at some point in the future that's gorgeous i'm sure you're so many many many seeds for the future thank you so much for sharing that with me no thank you for having me i'm off to get planning on a trip i need a bit of help with the i turn her over pleasure so which train journey are you now planning because come on it's so lovely isn't it just to think of all those glorious adventures you can have by train oh how nice i can hear the little train going past my window i live really near the tube i love

the sound of the chchchch i'm into it luckily but um yeah that was so lovely to speak to her about that and be taken on these lovely little journeys and it was quite funny because when i spoke to my mum later in the day after I spoke to Monisha in the morning. I said, oh, we've just been speaking with the travel writer about train travel. And my mum said, oh, there's this train in Italy. I really want to go on where the train on couples when it goes on a ferry. And I want to do that. And I said, ah, that's exactly the one I was talking about with Monisha. And I definitely want to try that. The other one I definitely want to do, as I said to Monisha, is the Canadian one, where you get to go up through all that beautiful landscape and make.

maybe see a bear and see some deer and I just think that sounds so good. So I'm very inspired. And I think it's a glorious way to travel. And I do think with the kids that when you do that kind of travel, you all kind of get involved in a different rhythm as a family. And I think those sorts of adventures are really, really good. So hopefully I can weave some of that in. I have been trying to be more adventurous again with taking the kids away with me. I think when I had very little ones, it was a little bit more intimidating the idea of travel. But now that my youngest is just turned seven, we're booking in quite a few family adventures that we'd been talking about for a while.

And I do think travel is such a privilege. And I love the idea that it might make them excited about and inspired by what they see. But also, I just love the fact that when you go somewhere else, you see a whole new world, and you think, what would it have been like to grow up here? what goes on here day by day, what's happening there right now while I'm sitting here in West London talking to you. So yeah, absolutely gorgeous. Thank you so much to Monisha cover coming around and talking to me and sending a shout out to her and her family and hoping that they had a lovely Christmas break and happy New Year. So here we are two episodes in.

Actually, let me have a little look because unlike my usual slightly ramshackle approach, to podcast publications. This time I've tried to be a little bit more organized. I'm going to have a quick look because I'm pretty sure that I did like a little rough order. Give me a second. I'll be able to tell you who's coming up next week. I'm actually recording another one later today as well.

And I've got another two next week. I do enjoy myself. It's a good one. So I have got here for you next up. Ah, Dr. Eliza Philby. So Eliza is a generational historian. And we had a very interesting chat, largely inspired by her book, which is called, it's time to dwell.

It's called Inheritocracy, and then the subtitle, it's time to talk about the bank of mum and dad. It's essentially about how what your parents are able to, how they support you into adulthood and within your adulthood, can make such a massive difference in your options and opportunities. It's really interesting and boy, does she know her stuff. So that's next week. But for now, listen, I hope whatever you're doing this week is treating you kindly.

Thank you to Claire Jones for producing the podcast. Thank you to Richard, my husband, for editing. Thank you, darling. Thank you to lovely LMA for being back on board with her glorious artwork. We missed you. Thank you to Monisa Rajesh for joining me and talking to me this week. And if you're looking for her travel books, I really do recommend Moonlight Express, the one all about night trains.

I think that's particularly evocative, but she's a lovely writer all round. And yeah, of course, biggest thanks to you, your ears. And I will continue sourcing out some lovely guests to finish off the series. But here we are, 172 in. And thank you so much for being part of this with me. Let's love season.