Monisha Rajesh returns, Train Travel Special

0:00Monisha Rajesh: Why does the same news story sound completely different depending on where you read it? That confusion is exactly what Ground News was built to solve. It's an app and website that compares news coverage, allowing you to see how each story is framed across the political spectrum and the world. For the recent story about the U.S. signing the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, their vantage plan shows us that right-leaning Daily Express framed it as a historic peace deal, while left-leaning NPR notes it resulted in the president's approval hitting record lows. Plus data like each publication's source of funding and a factuality rating.

0:31Monisha Rajesh: The Nobel Peace Center even called Ground News an excellent way to stay informed, avoid echo chambers, and expand your worldview. Get 40 % off by going to ground.news slash 2026. That's ground.news slash 2026. Again, ground.news slash 2026. While every other channel is fighting for your customers' attention, podcasts are where they've already given it. No one accidentally listens to a podcast for 45 minutes. They choose to be here. They trust the voice in their ears. And when that voice talks about your brand, it doesn't sound like advertising. It sounds like a recommendation from a friend. Acast gives you that trust at scale.

1:09Monisha Rajesh: Digital precision, post-read authenticity, and performance data that proves it worked. Don't fight for attention. Buy it with Acast. Learn more by visiting acast.com slash advertise.

1:30Monisha Rajesh: hello and welcome to the travel diaries podcast i'm your host holly rubenstein and here each week i'll be speaking to a very special guest about the seven chapters in their life's travel diaries from their all-time favorite destination and their hidden gem to their worst travel experience and what's at the top of their travel bucket list. We'll be uncovering their adventures around the world and the travel experiences and destinations that have shaped their lives. Well today I am so pleased to welcome back someone who you all really enjoyed the first time around on the podcast, the brilliant author and travel writer Monisha Rajesh.

2:14Monisha Rajesh: I'm so excited because she's got a gorgeous new book called Moonlight Express which takes us deep into the magical world of sleeper trains. In this new adventure, Manisha journeys across Europe, the Americas and beyond, trading airports for railway platforms and following moonlit tracks through some of the most cinematic landscapes on Earth, which we then have the pleasure of hearing about today. From the soft snow and candlelit calm of the Norwegian night trains to fairy tale villages dotted through Transylvania or wandering around the pastel-painted streets of Savannah, Georgia in the US, reached on Amtrak's Silver Meteor.

2:52Monisha Rajesh: She takes us high into the Andes too, aboard the luxurious Belmond Andean Explorer from Cusco to Arequipa and back in Britain, aboard the Royal Scotsman sipping whiskey in the observation car as the Highlands roll by. I think she really reminds us what makes train travel so unique, the romance, the community, and the chance to just simply sit by the window and watch the world roll by. I spoke to Manisha about a month or so ago at the Sea Containers Hotel on London's South Bank, one of my favourite London hotels. And we recorded the episode in one of their stunning new suites, looking out over the London skyline.

3:31Monisha Rajesh: They've got four new suites there, all inspired by different eras of time. We stayed in the kind of 80s-inspired suite, which was so fun, like all white leather, OTT, jazzy, Versace-esque decor. They're very cool. There's an Art Deco one. There's an Edwardian one. Anyway, check them out online. They're very fun. But before we dive in to today's episode, I wanted to share a little bit about a place that we've just come back from. I mentioned it a few weeks ago. A special few days at a hotel-cum-country club called Terre Blanche in the heart of Provence. We had a really great stay there, and because it is so family-friendly, I really thought it was one that I should let you know about.

4:11Monisha Rajesh: It's set on a vast, peaceful estate with rolling hills and lavender-centred gardens. The setting really does feel like it's something out of a Cezanne painting. And what made it so special for us was how easy everything is made for families. We had a spacious suite. It's one of the few places I found in Europe that offers proper separate living spaces as standard, which any parent will tell you is a game changer. The kids club was truly a standout with lots of creative activities, shady outdoor space. It even had its own pool. I couldn't believe that on the first day that Isabella went to that kids club, she'd already been for a swim with her pals.

4:45Monisha Rajesh: they had found a swimming costume for her. I didn't know I should have packed one and she'd had this great time and we had time in the meantime to go for a swim in the beautiful infinity pool there looking out over the rolling hills. And if you're not traveling with a family or if you are, it's also a major golf destination. There are two huge golf courses there, really beautifully landscaped. And then there's also a substantial spa and a Michelin-starred restaurant there as well as other restaurants that are more casual so it's one of those destinations that really kind of has everything that you need for a lovely break a lovely short break right so like now typically I would say let's buckle up but I guess we should say all aboard and let's get started with Manisha.

5:36Monisha Rajesh: Manisha welcome back to the Travel Diaries it is so great to see you you're here you're not on a train no I'm not how are you I'm really well thank you although I am about to

5:48Hannah Wallace: go on a train are you actually I know I really am um I'm taking my kids off for 10 days of inter

5:54Monisha Rajesh: railing oh my gosh you're doing your own kind of race across the world I am doing a race across the

6:00Hannah Wallace: well a race around Europe yeah um with them they are now eight and six well they will be eight and six next week and I've decided to take them off by myself so it's just the three of us on a 10-day trip around Europe with some sleeper trains thrown in yeah so I'm busy prepping for that

6:18Monisha Rajesh: that's so exciting so where what's your route going to be my route is London to Vienna and

6:23Hannah Wallace: then we're taking a sleeper train from Vienna to Rome and then we are heading from Rome up Italy through Cinque Terre across Florence first actually and then Genoa then across to Nice down the Riviera and then we're taking a sleeper train from Nice to Paris and then the Eurostar back home.

6:43Monisha Rajesh: That's epic so have they fallen so have they fallen in love with the train travel then through you?

6:50Hannah Wallace: I don't think they've had a choice to be really.

6:52Monisha Rajesh: So what would you say for somebody who you know is inspired by by the notion of taking a night train what would be a great first journey for them to try what's a good one that will get them hooked do you think I had and I'm a little

7:13Hannah Wallace: bit ashamed to say this I had never considered Scandinavia for trains until I set out doing this book I don't know why I think probably because to me it's and I do say this in the book that it's It's always come across to me as kind of aggressively outdoorsy. And I'm not a big cross-country skier or climber or sailor or hiker or any of these things. I'm not a brilliant skier either. But I discovered over the last couple of years that Scandinavia has probably got the best sleeper trains, not just in Europe, but I would say in the world.

7:46Monisha Rajesh: Wow.

7:47Hannah Wallace: For all the different components that I feel make for a brilliant sleeper train, which is it's quiet. it's punctual it's got very comfortable beds and the dining car for me that is the heart of a sleeper train is an excellent dining car because when you get on and you've done your bags and you want to go and just chill out having the dining car is just wonderful because you get in there you can stay there for as long as you want most of them are open all night and that's where you meet other passengers because if you're in a private compartment you would have to go knock

8:23Monisha Rajesh: on somebody else's to go chat to people and I guess it makes the time go quicker as well because it means utterly like from you know my UK listeners their experience of train travel aside from if you've like done a relatively long journey from the south to the north and there's a you know a canteen stand or something there's really not many trains that have a specific dining car that we could relate to in terms of that experience but this is being actually sitting at a table being brought food by a waiter and and you can choose things from a menu

9:00Hannah Wallace: right yeah absolutely and while I was researching this book I think even for the first six chapters I was really disappointed that I didn't find a dining car so that the first six chapters of the book I travel from London overground to Istanbul and I was amazed actually that I managed to have so much to save six chapters for just one mega journey yeah it was an amazing but all the way I didn't find a dining car and that was it was really sad to me because that really is the place where you get to meet everyone and you get to chat and also you get to try out local food because they have food in these compartments sorry in these dining cars that you don't really get anywhere else and it gives you really good insight into different flavors and just just different meals that people have and I then discovered the first big dining car in Turkey and it was fantastic it was suddenly that moment of oh my god there's a dining car on board and we just sped straight in and there was music playing and there were loads of different passages in there including the staff actually which was really nice because they were sitting with everybody and I got to sit and watch the scenery go by I got to have this really delicious shore bar which is like a lentil soup um we were there till about midnight and nobody was trying to kick us out it sounded so atmospheric yeah it was beautiful and they'd strung it with gold fairy lights and it was so cozy and just so lovely just watching other people who weren't even eating that's the other thing people come in there even when they don't want a meal they just come in there because there is this innate sense of community and belonging and they'll just sit there scrolling on phones rather than sitting alone in a compartment or in a couched seat they just want to be with people yeah um and it feels like this little kind of rolling living room and then grudgingly they'll get up and go to bed and then but they'll all be back there first thing in the morning and people almost race their first thing because you want to get a seat and you want to get a nice position looking out of the window and seeing what's going on oh it really feels as though

10:59Monisha Rajesh: that needs to be integrated into more trains it really does and as an answer to your question

11:05Hannah Wallace: I would say to a first timer, Norway for me, if I'm going to absolutely pinpoint something, Norway to me has got the loveliest sleeper trains. I took a train from Oslo to Trondheim and then Trondheim up to Bordeaux, which is right inside the Arctic Circle in the north. and I would say depending on what kind of person you are you could either do it in winter where you get to see the snow and reindeer on the slopes and the fjords and you get

11:39Monisha Rajesh: all of that from your train

11:41Hannah Wallace: yeah absolutely

11:42Monisha Rajesh: you can see the fjords as well

11:44Hannah Wallace: the trains run right alongside the fjords continuously and it's the most spectacular scenery and obviously if you do it in winter you get the polar nights when you're going from Trondheim up to Buddha. So it's just a very different type of light. It's not permanent dark, dark. You get a kind of twilight at around six or seven in the evening and they have a period where it's just a few hours of almost pink light. And it's absolutely spectacular. It's so difficult to describe, but it's a very surreal kind of light because it's night, but it's not quite. Because the sun obviously doesn't come up at that period at all.

12:20Hannah Wallace: but the one that I did which I think is absolutely amazing for your brain and your body to kind of adapt to is doing it during the midnight sun so I took the train from Oslo to Trondheim during July which is the period where the sun doesn't set for about six weeks I think it's mid-May to mid-July unbelievable the sun doesn't set at all it just hovers above the horizon and then it just goes up again and it's really weird to watch it at one o 'clock in the morning you see it start to dip and then it never drops below the horizon and then within 20 minutes it starts to rise again and it's this insanely orange light it's reddish orange and it's there continuously and when you're on a train at three o 'clock in the morning sitting in the dining car and you look out and you see people cycling alongside or people fishing at 4 a.m in waders it's so weird for your brain to compute that it's 4am but people are out and it's light.

13:19Monisha Rajesh: Why are they out?

13:20Hannah Wallace: Because they only have this light for a certain time in the year and I think because they have polar nights when they have the opposite and they've got this permanent sunshine they make the most of it so they go out hiking they go out sailing from one island to the other they really make the most of the light and people are up constantly it's a really strange feeling walking around at one o 'clock in the morning in Trondheim and there are kids out and they're cycling and you think this is so weird and your circadian rhythms don't know what to do because your body thinks you need to sleep but then because of the light you don't and I took the train during this period and it was just an amazing experience and it does because I've done so many sleeper trains and I've done so many trains in general it does take a lot to kind of grab me and say this is quite a phenomenal journey but this one really was and also Norwegian trains are just lovely they're they're comfortable they're quiet they're really smooth the dining car's got a massive menu it's got vegan it's got lacto-free it's got everything you can imagine but then it's also got reindeer stew and meatballs and all the traditional things traditional food and it's it's a beautiful beautiful place to travel for all those things that I mentioned so I think if you're a sleeper train novice and you're terrified about what to do I would say absolutely go to Norway first oh that sounds great but then after that nothing will ever live up to it right yeah you set the bar really high and was was the landscape impressive throughout the journey really was from setting off from Oslo um it's the fun bit at the beginning when you leave a station and you get to see all the guts of the cities you can see you really can see right into the backs of people's houses.

15:03Hannah Wallace: And I really do remember what that first half an hour was like coming out of Oslo. And Norway's really wealthy and you can see it because a lot of trains, when you come out through the kind of backs of stations, you see all the grime, you see the poverty, you see derelict houses, you see, you know, warehouses. But in the outskirts of Oslo, you absolutely don't. I remember seeing Teslas parked in driveways. There were hot tubs on the roofs of four-story houses. They were clearly wealthy areas. And you can see right inside. I just love sitting in the window and watching people have dinner. There were people sitting outside in the hot tubs.

15:40Hannah Wallace: There were also one thing that really struck me was how on all of their balconies, they had really beautiful futons and lovely lights and not kind of bags and bikes and all the crap that you see when you pull out of Waterloo. And you can see the backs of people's flats just stacked with everything and suitcases. so you get again you get a real sense of a city because you see how wealthy people are you can see that oslo and norway in general is a very wealthy country and i could also see how green oslo was as a city which really surprised me they've got a huge kind of resurgence of nature and planting trees and it was like going through jungle for a lot of the time interesting but then very rapidly when you sort of move out and you end up passing it's called lake mjörsa i think that's how you pronounce it it's so stunning at 10 o 'clock at night 11 o 'clock at night it's because of that light because it's it's not near the arctic circle but they still have the light at 11 o 'clock at night it's kind of misty with pink and reflections and you can still see a bit of the surroundings but and it's not completely dark but you again you get a real sense of the land and what it looks like and farmhouses and you can still see what's going on in a way that you know just randomly during the day because you can take this train during the day as well it's about six to eight hours to get up to trondheim but i think there's that something about that light traveling through that kind of very ghostly light that just shows up land in a very different way yeah and it's very special to get that insight yeah has there been a journey in

17:17Monisha Rajesh: this book where you've been traveling from one destination to another going through places and thinking to yourself I'd like to go back to that place that I saw out the window I do it all the

17:31Hannah Wallace: time my notebook is full of little marks going oh exciting time with pink houses and then I'll quickly pull up my google map and see what it was um I definitely do that and I'm thinking specifically with when I was on the Datsia train from Vienna to Bucharest I was going through Transylvania and even just the concept of going through Transylvania was quite exciting for me because I'd never thought that I would ever end up there. And seeing what Transylvania actually looks like compared to what's in your mind. And I was reading Dracula, Bram Stoker's Dracula at the time because I love doing this.

18:06Hannah Wallace: I like buying, not nonfiction, because I feel like nonfiction taints my perspectives on things by hearing someone else's factual opinions, well, factual descriptions of somewhere. But I like reading novels because they are set within the place where I'm travelling. yeah they're not real but they also bring to life a kind of feeling of the culture of the time and reading Dracula specifically was quite fun because the book actually opens on a train Joseph Harker is on a train going through that region and I went through these really stunning towns which did have pastel colored houses they've got there are a lot of medieval fortresses and fortified towns and spires and steeples and they were so beautiful and they just looked like nobody got off at those stations and I made lists of all of them and I was actually thinking about going back there this summer to go and do another journey where I actually get off stay a couple of days and then hop back on and keep going so I guess that's how all my travels end up being endless because I always think oh I've done this now and then you think no I'd quite like to go back and do this again so yeah constantly and I think again that's what's so lovely about train travel if I'd flown that it was a 90 minute flight from Vienna to Bucharest and I could have done it but you see all the in-betweenness of the land and geography and countries and you get to see how each kind of folds into the next and they're all related you can see how things move with a degradation from one into the other and I love the fact that you get a constant sense of where you are you have a sense of space you have a really good sense of distance as well if you've been sitting on a train for six hours at a time and you're still in the same region you really understand how vast it is and how it's spread out and there'll be no people for two hours it's nothing but farmland yeah you won't see a single person and then suddenly you'll get this concentration of you know lots and lots of little towns clustered and loads of people and everybody will get on and off and you you understand then why they're all living in this specific place and what it offers and you you come away just so much more informed I think once you've been on a train

20:24Monisha Rajesh: what do you think is has been the most kind of cinematic visually arresting route that you've taken aside from the Norway train on in the book is there one in particular that you you were blown away when you were looking out the window because I guess that is another thing that really sells

20:43Hannah Wallace: people on a train journey when I was traveling in Peru I was on the Belmond Andean Explorer which travels from Cusco to Arequipa and you wake up at Lake Titicaca in the morning and it's absolutely spectacular sunrise across the water but when we were stabling at Puno station for the night stabling is when you literally park in a station so that you can sleep overnight so you're not traveling on the tracks and being shunned and thrown all over the place I remember a moment where everyone was still in the dining car they were all chatting I could hear everyone there's lots of noise on board and we were still traveling we were still moving at this point and we hadn't quite reached Puna.

21:27Hannah Wallace: We were going through a town called Huliaka, I think. I remember thinking, I'm just quite tired. I'm going to go to bed because we've got a really early start. And my compartment had already been made up. The bed was made. My slippers were next to it. I did my teeth and my curtains were drawn. So I didn't initially think about what was outside. But while I was lying there, I suddenly thought, hang on, where are we? And I took back the curtains and it was like a festival outside and it was well it was a regular Friday night in a city and we were inching through this town where when I looked down literally down to the tracks there were people on motorbikes and cycles waiting for us to go across the crossing and they were all parked with like one leg raised on the pedal waiting to set off again and they were so close they were literally a meter away from me there were bright lights out of shops there were people eating and they were all suddenly looking at me because I pulled back the curtain and obviously my compartment light was shining out and they were all watching and then we all waved I waved at them they waved back and we were rolling through this town and I it was such a lovely scene and it's probably one of my favorites because I was I felt like I was literally being drawn through a city with you know arms reach from these people and I think with a lot of the luxury sleeper trains people forget that there are towns and cities and people outside those windows because with the blinds down curtains drawn all the attention really is focused on inside those trains there's you know there's a grand piano there's you know cachaça there's great you know pisco sours and everyone's having a whale of a time but they can often forget that you are traveling through local towns there are regular people just going about their day and on a friday night people are out there's bars on the streets there are people sitting at you know collapsible tables right next to your fancy train and for me that was the most fun bit I loved seeing all of that.

23:27Monisha Rajesh: I don't really understand the notion of of getting on a train and the focus being inwards because if you're bothering to spend time slowly traveling I feel like the point is so you can look

23:42Hannah Wallace: outwards it's interesting because I feel like I think you get both I think you get both specifically with sleeper trains because when you get on you or certainly me anyway I straight into the window sit there with my notebook yeah and looking out I want to know what's going on I want to see exactly where I am oh the sunsets as well I know it's such a cliche but train sunsets are worth their weight in gold they make my journey and I will run from one compartment to the next going into other people's to just get those sunsets if I have to because they just make the journey they're so it's it's so it is romantic it's it's an incredible thing to watch because you get so much of it I just find that once that's gone and it's dark there isn't a huge there isn't a huge amount to do but that's when your attention is focused inwards yeah so you've got the best of both worlds you do you really do have that and you can either you can put your headphones on and binge some netflix you can read books but you then get that opportunity to do what you want you have that gift of time and when it's focused inwards on the train that's when you get your chats you get your conversations with all kinds of people you you also get self-reflection i know that sounds so kind of woo woo but you do and trains give you that trains give you that time

25:05Monisha Rajesh: with your thoughts. Why does the same news story sound completely different depending on where you read it? That confusion is exactly what Ground News was built to solve. It's an app and website that compares news coverage, allowing you to see how each story is framed across the political spectrum and the world. For the recent story about the U.S. signing the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, their vantage plan shows us that right-leaning Daily Express framed it as a historic peace deal, while left-leaning NPR notes it resulted in the president's approval hitting record lows, plus data like each publication's source of funding and a factuality rating.

25:39Monisha Rajesh: The Nobel Peace Center even called Ground News an excellent way to stay informed, avoid echo chambers, and expand your worldview. Get 40 % off by going to ground.news.com. That's ground.news.com. Again, ground.news.com. You've got social dialed in. Search is doing its thing. So why do your marketing results look the same as six months ago. That's because you're fishing in the same pond as everyone else. Podcast listeners are a different audience entirely, more engaged, harder to reach through traditional channels, and ready to act when someone they trust makes a recommendation. We're Acast, and we put them right in front of you.

26:20Monisha Rajesh: Browse thousands of the world's leading podcasts, book host reads or run your own ads, and track every conversion in real time. Same skills you already have, brand new results.

26:38Hannah Wallace: I chose people when I was traveling this time according to the journey that I was doing and I tried to match people to what I thought they would like so I took my mum on the Royal Scotsman because you don't have to do very much but nap and eat cake and drink wine

26:54Monisha Rajesh: So that sounded like a lovely journey because in general and we spoke about this a little bit on your past appearance on the podcast but in the UK we don't have that many like really hands-down spectacular train journeys you mentioned how the Cornish train that's the Knight Riviera the Knight Riviera yeah it goes from Paddington to Penzance were you saying that it's a nice journey in the day it's a nice journey

27:27Hannah Wallace: Oh, so that route during the day is beautiful. Yeah. It's absolutely spectacular. But you miss that at night. You do miss that at night.

27:36Monisha Rajesh: So it's one of those routes that you can do as a night train, but you can also do it the exact same route in the day. Yeah, absolutely. And it's really, really pretty.

27:44Hannah Wallace: And it's really stunning. But I think people who do it at nighttime, it's because you want to get down to Cornwall and be there in the morning. And that was the absolute upside of it because it's five and a bit hours during the day. It's long. and you miss out if you're just going away for a weekend or something you miss that so if you set off on a Friday night at 11 you get into Penzance at eight o 'clock in the morning you've got the whole weekend ahead of you yeah and and we did that and you know what when you wake up at seven it's absolutely beautiful scenery it's it's stunning we got the sunrise there was pink mist hovering on the fields and you do kind of forget about the crappy night sleep I do I've got a coffee in hand I've slept like two hours or something but you kind of forgive that when you wake up and you pull up the blind and you've got this amazing view outside and that bit of dawn when everyone is still asleep on board and there's you feel like you're the only person that's witness to this you're just sitting in the window you get to see the morning just breaking open basically and you'll see farmers going out to feed their flock you'll see very very tiny details of like people's curtains coming open and they'll catch eyes with them for a second which is quite fun I always love that and then you get a knock on the door you we I remember we the train manager's guy called Del Boy he brought us um breakfast baguette bacon baguettes and hot chocolate for Ariel and coffee for me and I just looked at her face and she was just so enthralled by the whole thing she just she was she'd slept fine she was absolutely content but she had absolutely loved it and it was just this magic of waking up and oh my god someone's brought me a bacon sandwich and a hot chocolate and then some biscuits and and the scenery is beautiful because you start to come up the coast and the waves start crashing really close up to the train it's it's really beautiful and I if I had slept I would have absolutely adorned that journey but you know it is it is the nature of the beast the trains do move around they do rattle and you don't always sleep brilliantly but again I don't think people take them because they want to sleep

29:49Monisha Rajesh: I don't think that's why people take yeah yeah there's much more to it exactly so going back to the Scotsman so that's a journey that you take both in the day and at night yes and it's a it's a you you did it as a celebration with your mum's 70 yes it was my mum's 70 yeah so it's a special occasion train isn't it and can you take us a bit through the the route and what made it so special and what you saw in the daytime.

30:16Hannah Wallace: Again, it's one of those luxury trains where it's, I suppose the best way of describing them was a bit like a cruise on wheels. So you have a lot of off-board excursions.

30:27Monisha Rajesh: Oh, really? Yes. So it's not like you're, it isn't that. You're on at the beginning and then you get off at the end and you're all just on it for the whole time. You get breaks from being on the train.

30:39Hannah Wallace: Yes, fully. That's really interesting. Yeah, so it's another Belmont train. And it sets off from Edinburgh at around two o 'clock in the afternoon from Edinburgh Waverley. And within about half an hour, you are through, again, just this stunning landscape. Beautiful, beautiful fields. And then starts to turn into the moors. And then you go over the Firth of Forth Bridge and you're clanking away. And I think the nicest bit about this particular train is that it's got an open deck at the back.

31:10Monisha Rajesh: yeah I couldn't believe that when I read that because that's so cool that you can actually step

31:15Hannah Wallace: outside it's so fun and so you open the back door and it's just the wind is kind of slapping at your clothing and you're going on this bridge and you look down and you can see boats in the water and you can see the land just approaching and you know you're you can reach out it's it's a clanking very very massive construction but you're right in the center of it and it's it's so exhilarating And it's really funny seeing people who clearly have never been on trains like this before sort of inching their way out. And then you'd look around and it's just full of people with this massive grin on their face and the hair is all over the place and they're grinning away like kids.

31:54Hannah Wallace: And that's one of the things I love the most about seeing people who are kind of sleeper train novices when they get to see all these new things. And you can see the genuine thrill of being on this train. It is like being a kid again. yeah trains just have that ability to bring joy out of people because it does take you back to kind of just it's just it's just fun it's just fun and it is adventure um so yeah so this train goes up from edinburgh it then winds its way this was a specific trip that i did which was two nights and three days um and it takes you way up to the north you end up in oh gosh kyle of lockhouse you You go through to Aberdeenshire.

32:35Hannah Wallace: You go around to Dundee. And then it basically does a loop. And by the third morning brings you back to Edinburgh again. But you do get off in between. You get to go and visit whiskey distilleries. You can go and do clay pigeon shooting. You can go hiking. You get taken to battlefields. It's a lovely kind of wraparound tour, I guess, of Scotland. So I can fully understand why people come from all over the world to do them because you get the taste of everything literally because also on board the chef sources everything that they cook from where we're traveling oh how wonderful so he's this he's this amazing man called mark tambourini and i sat and chatted with him about the train and he's been on board i think about 14 years and he's cooking in this tiny galley that you i don't know how they have sort of three or four people moving around in there cooking for 40 people at a time and getting everything out at the same time it's it's quite an amazing machine but he was telling me that he sources everything from where we're going and he said it's really easy to do it because you have such amazing ingredients in scotland so he will get his salmon from the locks he will get um his beef from aberdeenshire and he will get his scallops from kyle of loch and everything's fresh and

33:54Monisha Rajesh: there's a dining car that you enjoy all of this oh there are there are two there are two i think

33:59Hannah Wallace: there are two but the lovely bit about the royal scotsman is that the tables are communal you sit at one long table oh how interesting and all of you sit together yeah whereas on the venice sample and orient express or the and in explorer they're individual tables you have you sit with your pairs or you sit in your quartet of who you came with but this one's much more geared i think towards

34:22Monisha Rajesh: getting everyone to be pals yeah and i really felt on this train that there was much more

34:28Hannah Wallace: opportunity to make friends with people because when you sit down at a it's like being at school you sit at a massive long table and then you make friends on the first day who are you what's your name where are you from and why are you here yeah yeah yeah and and very quickly everyone got

34:41Monisha Rajesh: chatting and do people spend a lot of time looking out the window because yes you know i it's one of those destinations that a lot of people have on their bucket list isn't it kind of seeing the scottish highlands and seeing that landscape and does it deliver in the way that you'd hope it

34:57Hannah Wallace: it absolutely definitely this one does um you go through the moors you get to see heather covered glens we saw deer we saw pheasants kind of darting around you and you suddenly see this flash of red and you realize it's a pheasant just running up a hill it's an amazing looking train as well it's absolutely stunning it's this burgundy train with beautiful livery and it's you know it's fancy so people suddenly see this thing going past and think what in the earth is that with all these people hanging off the back in this open carriage with you know champagne glasses in hand yeah it must look very odd to people from the outside as well um but it does go through absolutely beautiful scenery and I remember in the evening specifically it was my my favorite sunset time coming back down across the coast in Aberdeenshire and there was a little stream running alongside I was on one side and then lambs frolicking on the left and and then the sea just just above you could just see that misty kind of blue blur and you can smell the ocean and you can feel the sort of last bits of the sunshine on you and it's again it's a very sensory experience and then behind you you can hear that clamor of everybody's in kilts because you have to dress up for dinner for one of the nights it's normally informal um they don't have a specific dress code but one of the nights is kind of black tie so people come in kilts and it's just so fun and then they have the kind of proper music and it's it's lovely it's just you get you get a really good sense of every little bit about Scotland that makes it beautiful so you get to taste the food you get to see things you get to see whiskey distilleries you get you know and it's and it's not a kind of I was worried that it might be a kind of cliched oh look it's everything Scottish here have some shortbread and kilts it's not it's really not like that at all you get you get a really kind of lovely introduction to things and the most spectacular bit is the descent in the morning where you're coming right down the coast and you're going past caravan parks and beaches and people walking their dogs and and you're leaning over the railings and it's sea air blowing at you and you've just had breakfast and it's it is a real slow it's a real period of slowing down I feel, being on these trends.

37:43Monisha Rajesh: hitting record lows, plus data like each publication's source of funding and a factuality rating. The Nobel Peace Center even called Ground News an excellent way to stay informed, avoid echo chambers, and expand your worldview. Get 40 % off by going to ground.news slash 2026. That's ground.news slash 2026. Again, ground.news slash 2026. You've got social dialed in. Search is doing its thing. So why do your marketing results look the same as six months ago. That's because you're fishing in the same pond as everyone else. Podcast listeners are a different audience entirely, more engaged, harder to reach through traditional channels, and ready to act when someone they trust makes a recommendation.

38:26Monisha Rajesh: We're Acast, and we put them right in front of you. Browse thousands of the world's leading podcasts, book host reads or run your own ads, and track every conversion in real time. same skills you already have brand new results a cast a cast.com slash advertise

38:48Monisha Rajesh: well it sounds very much in contrast to the caledonian sleeper and and i feel like i can be quite outspoken about it because of the amount that they charge you to go on it you know um i had read i think i've been sent press releases about the big renovation of the caledonian sleeper so the caledonian sleeper is the trainer that goes from london up to ed is it edinburgh it goes up to edinburgh and glasgow and and and beyond potentially so i was interested to to read about it because i knew that there was a big renovation and it was meant to be very exciting and that the cost of the rooms per night is like staying in a london hotel i mean it's it's how much is it

39:32Hannah Wallace: around i spent 340 pounds on the bedroom because i was just curious yeah i was curious well and this is the thing for your journalism yeah exactly and i i also um i buy all my train tickets yeah i don't with the exception of some of the belmont trains where i've also done journalism around them i buy all my tickets because i don't feel like i can write honestly otherwise and i want to travel as a passenger I need to know what it's like to be an actual passenger on that train so I booked the bedroom on the Caledonian sleeper just out of curiosity I saw that it was£340 and I thought a what's it giving me that the bunk beds aren't apart from obviously just having a bit more space so it's a double bed so it's a double bed but also who is spending that money because when I looked up that cost I then looked at the flight I was just interested and it was about 45 pounds to fly from city airport up to Edinburgh 340 pounds yeah for the train yeah and so that sets an expectation it does it really does and so I rocked up to Houston at 10 o 'clock um so from the start you are allowed to use the waiting room at Houston you can use the fancy waiting room that the Caledonian sleeper has and you can shower there now I understand that you might shower there if you don't live in London and you're not coming from home I can't imagine ever wanting to shower at Euston station I also didn't need snacks or to because you know I live in London so it's fine so I didn't need it but yeah sure if you live in Scotland and you're coming late and you want to shower before you get on that's fully understandable um with that ticket you can board before everybody else all the people down in the other compartments who aren't in the sleeper section they have to wait until I think probably about 11 or something which is a faff you don't want to wander around in the cold in Euston and you get to use the dining car you have specific access other people can't but the actual compartment itself it's just it's basically a small double bed squashed into a square room and when you walk in there's there's literally four steps you can take you open the door you step in and then there's a little bathroom on your right which is a toilet that falls down into a shower area and like on a boat yeah basically and I opted not to use the shower because it just looked a bit gross um which it shouldn't do no it shouldn't it shouldn't look like that and I you know it's it's very sweet you've got a little kind of organza bag on the bed with your products Caledonian sleeper products your shampoo shower gel bed spray all very sweet but within about five seconds I had a zipper and I was like what the earth is that and then I realized it was the guy in the room next door but the walls are so thin that it genuinely felt like he was in my room and I shut the door I couldn't lock it I couldn't figure out how to use the key card he couldn't figure out to use his key card either it needs a double tap or something and no one could figure it out and he in the end he just slammed it shut and went fuck this can't be bothered and we went to the dining car and I had I had my haggis my neeps and my daddy's um because I just felt like it was the thing to do and it was the worst night's sleep I've ever had yeah genuinely the worst night's sleep I got into bed sprayed my pillow got my eye mask out and it was fine for about 20 minutes it was just kind of frittering along and then there was just this kind of feeling and I thought oh my god that I'm literally tilting and then the train had basically gone past another one and then it happened again and when you know when trains go past one another you get that yeah yeah yeah and then it and it went on the whole night oh so kind of like it was shocking to your system you're in that kind of oh god it must be at least 4am now and your eyes are watering because you're tired and I put the pillow on my head and it didn't do anything and then when it had sort of quietened then it started kind of shaking from like snaking around the tracks and I remember just lying there thinking 340 pounds this has cost me and it's all in the name of research but my god I wouldn't do this again and you wouldn't recommend it no unless you have got a very very amazing ability to avoid sound and noise or you sleep like a log no i wouldn't say get that one i would say it's not like you're forking out for

44:18Monisha Rajesh: the kind of atmosphere or because you said it was you said it like the rims were a bit higher like even though they'd just been done like the decor wasn't that nice it's just it's it's a

44:33Hannah Wallace: and then you wake up at, the train comes in really early as well. So you have to get up. The scenery, again, the scenery is gorgeous when you wake up. You wake near car stairs, you have your full English, or sorry, your full Scottish, which is basically a full English, but with a couple of triangles of like potato scone or something. And then you pull in by half seven, you're in Edinburgh. And I think I would, so I would do it again. I'm not fully slating it. I would do it again, but I would do it in the bunk beds right I just don't feel the need it's just not to fork out not for that and if you book in advance I don't know what the cost is it's probably about somewhere between 90 and 120 pounds or something you can be in a regular bunk bed and I would do it that way yeah because it's just not I certainly wouldn't fly I still can't fly I would probably take the Lumo train which is I took that returning I took the Lumo from Edinburgh back to London which is the budget service which cost me I think it was something about 50 pounds at the time given the difference like I just read I basically just read a book for five hours yeah um and enjoyed the scenery because that leg actually from Edinburgh down to sort of Yorkshire area is gorgeous it's really stunning yeah and again you miss that at night you actually do miss that like when you're going out the other way so yeah I'm not I think they need to do something about that I just wish

45:58Monisha Rajesh: that there were more good options like that across the UK it feels as though we're really lagging

46:02Hannah Wallace: behind in that respect oh so much and that's a reason why I haven't written about British trains yeah I just I can't we are so behind in so many different ways um I mean we we have we have got connections we have got an incredible network and when it does run it runs really well but it that's so rare and it's the cost the cost is absolutely outrageous yeah until it becomes an

46:27Monisha Rajesh: like an equal cost or so to flying then it can't ever become for so many people an actual valid

46:35Hannah Wallace: option no it's not yeah you've got to actually deliver so if you're buying a ticket you expect to get from a to b you expect to actually get there you don't want a rail replacement bus service you don't want to be told at the last minute that your seat isn't valid anymore and you're going to have to stand it's just not no you can't you just can't do that and having traveled around europe so much in the last three years I genuinely believe we've got one of the worst train networks

47:00Monisha Rajesh: and services in the world yeah yeah I really do it's sad isn't it I was really surprised in the book to because I train travel in the US is just it's just something that I I the sound of a train in the US is so iconic like I know the sound of an American train but I I've traveled a lot around the US and it's never even really I think I've maybe been on one train it's just not much of a feature in there like everyday lives so it was interesting particularly because my connection is to Miami that you took the train well you took it from Orlando but it started the silver meteor in Miami and heads up to New York and you got and it stops at so many places that are like individually places that people would love to hop off and spend a couple of nights and then get back corner on like savannah charleston so what did you think of it um because that's another train

47:58Hannah Wallace: route that's had a bit of a kind of revamp yeah it has so when i was doing around the world in 80 trains i had a six week amtrak rail pass but i didn't get to do the silver meteor because hurricane katrina had completely wrecked that whole area so it was one of the trains that i'd flagged up to do and then couldn't so when I was doing this book I saw that it had come back on track but also that they had revamped some of the compartments and they'd got a brand new dining car they'd done massive things to the roomettes and so the roomettes I've described the roomettes a little bit on Amtrak they have the coach cars which are where regular people travel then they have the roomettes which are sounds so american it is a roomette it's like a rocket yeah the roomettes which have got a really odd configuration actually they've got two seats that face each other it's like a really strange little cubbyhole where it's a tiny door that you pull back probably the size of a downstairs toilet and there's two seats facing each other and then the window and then at night those two seats fall down towards each other into a berth and then there's an upper berth that pulls down okay and then there's a small toilet next to whoever's at the bottom right lift up like like i guess like an ice box and you think it might be and then you open it oh it's a loo and that's the space right and it's insanely expensive oh really yeah it's about 540 for two of you to go from orlando up to new york and how How long would that take?

49:35So that overnight one, that was around, I think it was 16 hours in total.

49:41Hannah Wallace: But by contrast, it was$90 for my ticket to Savannah. And then another 60, I think it was up to New York. So say about 140. So the difference is quite kind of distinct. But then they've got the actual rooms, bedrooms as well. And they're around$1 ,200 to$1 ,500. And they've just got two beds, possibly a third very small adult. $1 ,200? $1 ,500. So you can see why there is a big divide in who takes these. And when I was on board, I went up to have a look. The train manager was very sweet. He shouldn't have allowed me in, but he did. And he let me go and have a look at these compartments. And they are very swanky.

50:22Hannah Wallace: They've updated it. It's got much better berths, slightly bigger, but not that much. And I was still taken, again, a bit like the Caledonian sleeper. I just thought, who are the people who are in here? and again it's retirees and he told me openly he said look it's just basically people who can spring for that ticket and it was very wealthy white retirees basically right and i was very much not in that compartment because i was not gonna fork out that money say like you wanted

50:51Monisha Rajesh: to do a multi-center trip right and you were you're flying into orlando and then you wanted to stop off in savannah and then you wanted to go on to new york i mean that's a cool itinerary where you get to see three very contrasting places with three very contrasting experiences. So say, so how long did it take you to get from Orlando to Savannah and then Savannah to New York? How long were those train journeys?

51:13Hannah Wallace: So it was all the same train, Silver Meteor. I got on at around 1.30 in the afternoon and by 7.15 we'd pulled into Savannah. Okay. So it was about like six hours, I think. And it's a pretty journey. It's funny because it's not known for being scenic. At least people don't talk about it as a scenic journey. But I found it was again.

51:35Monisha Rajesh: The way that you describe it in the book is really like evocative of like this swampiness. And, you know, it's an unusual landscape to get to witness.

51:43Hannah Wallace: That's the thing for, I guess, if you don't live in Florida, it is really interesting seeing it. And you are passing through swamps. You've got Spanish moss dripping off the trees. And it's really unusual because I'm just not used to seeing that kind of landscape. And the houses look different. You know, you've got these picket fences and basketball nets in the front. And it's, I love it. It's different. It looks different from what my landscape looks like in the UK. So I found it quite fascinating. But by 7.15, we were in Savannah and I hopped off. And I decided to spend about, I think it was three nights in total, which I would say is enough if you want to get a good feel for the city, which I think is probably, after New Orleans, one of my favorite cities in the US.

52:29Hannah Wallace: Really? Yeah, it's so warm and friendly and the food is second to none. It's soul food. So you're going to get your grits and sausage patties and fried chicken and just loads of oysters. That was something I wasn't expecting. Oysters is a really big thing out there. Baked oysters and stuffed oysters and fried oysters. And it was everywhere. I didn't realize it was such a thing. And it's just a lovely, it's a beautiful city as well, because it was one of the only cities that was spared all the bombing during the Civil War. And it wasn't burnt down. And it's still got a huge fusion of so many different types of architecture.

53:13Hannah Wallace: And you've got these spectacular homes with kind of black and white frontage and big porticos and massive columns. And the streets are covered in Spanish moss. It's hanging everywhere. It looks like it's permanently set for Halloween. But the people are just so sweet. They're so friendly and they're really welcome. They have got that southern, it is true, that southern hospitality is absolutely a thing. And in fact, this time, I wish I'd gone to Charleston as well because I didn't realise quite how close it was. And so my three days in Savannah, when I then got on, I got back on. I got on the same train, the Silver Meteor, 7.15, same time I'd got off.

53:50Hannah Wallace: It pulled into the station three days later. I got back on and it was pouring with rain but I remember within two hours they call and they call out everything so kind of old school they're like calling a Jostin and I thought oh no it's that close I could have actually maybe spent a night here um but then you know there's always a chance to come back again so yeah and carried on on the silver meteor actually slept really well on the train I was prepped this time I'd got my eye mask I got my neck pillow I got my earplugs I'd got a fully reclining seat so I was fine and I slept well and woke up at half seven as we were pulling into DC.

54:28Monisha Rajesh: Well on to the final question Manisha and that is I mean you have now done so many trains day or night which is now left on your bucket list where what have you got your sights on next?

54:43Hannah Wallace: That is a really tough question because my bucket list train was the Andean Explorer. Was it really? Yeah, it was. Oh, how lovely that you got to take it. It was. I had always wanted to do it from the moment I heard about its launch. It just seemed so far off and impossible because it's so far away. And it's the kind of thing you need to do with a group of people. But I got very lucky with that group of people and they were brilliant. And I feel like I've ticked off that bucket list. But I would really like to do the Trans-Siberian. now when we last spoke I talked about the trans-mongolian I think yes which I did for around the world in 80 trains yeah yeah I did it from Moscow to Beijing but I've never done the trans-siberian which goes from Moscow to Vladivostok all the way across Russia with all the steps yeah and I think because of what has happened or happening with Russia and the fact that no one can really go there and do that now i would love to go back and meet russians again and talk to them yeah because they were the people on board that train was some of the best characters and they were they were lovely people yeah and they don't deserve what's happened to them and what putin is doing and i would love to go back and spend nine days on board the train i'd probably need a russian interpreter but i would like to go back and i think that's the lovely bit about train travel is that it's it doesn't stay the same I went back to India for this book after 10 years to just have a look and reassess what it was like and how the trains had changed and it was so different it was so different and even the the things that people were willing to talk about and tell me on the train were different from 10 years ago and I think that's the fun bit where you can you can get back on the same route that you've done before and find the interiors are different the food is different people are different the conversation is different and I would really like to go back and do that train and see what's changed um from that seat yeah that's lovely oh thank you so much for your time it's been endlessly fascinating chatting to you Manisha

56:55Monisha Rajesh: thank you so much for sharing your train travel diaries with us thank you so much Holly

57:05Monisha Rajesh: ah it was so lovely to be reunited with Manisha I just love hearing about train journeys there's just something so aspirational about them I have done I haven't done any night journeys let's be honest I haven't done any overnight train journeys but she has inspired me to you know make that a priority especially those journeys in Norway and Scandinavia in general they sound wonderful Her book Moonlight Express Around the World by Night Train is published by Bloomsbury on the 28th of August. So get your pre-orders in now. Thanks so much for listening today. If you'd like a reminder of any of the destinations that we chat about on any of the episodes, just open up the episode show notes on your podcast app and there's a destination recap list in there.

57:50Monisha Rajesh: Or you can visit my website, thetraveldiariespodcast.com. If you'd like to find out who is joining me on next week's episode, come and follow me on Instagram. I'm at Holly Rubenstein and I'm also on TikTok at Holly Rubenstein too. If you can't wait till then, remember there's the first 14 seasons to catch up on. That's about 155 episodes to keep you busy. If you enjoyed today's episode and you fancy leaving a little rating or review on your podcast app, that would be fantastic. It helps other people to discover the podcast. In the meantime, wishing you guys all safe travels, a wonderful week and I'll be back on Tuesday.

58:54We'll be right back.

58:57Monisha Rajesh: Let's get started.

58:58Hannah Wallace: Uh, sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.

59:02Monisha Rajesh: You what?

59:02Hannah Wallace: Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it.

59:06Monisha Rajesh: So there's no...

59:07Hannah Wallace: No, no buyer's remorse.

59:08Monisha Rajesh: More like buyer's rejoice? Ugh, I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyer's rejoice.

59:17Hannah Wallace: Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com.