I agree–but you have to understand that Theroux is the essential travel pessimist–that maroon suit in Thailand was like $5K to him, and he NEVER got his money back. Oh, and the tailor stabbed him with the needle like six times on accident.

Seriously, When you get to Latin America, you’re going to see a bunch of yuppie- tourists wearing Red Sox hats pretending to read a copy of his “Old Patagonian Express”

In this book, his goal is simple… start in Boston and take the train all the way to Patagonia, S. America’s most southern point. For the most part, he does this with just a few exceptions for flights where trains could not penetrate.

You’re going to hear a bunch of these readers say stuff like “oh, I know what he means”, etc. etc. But the reality is that Theroux almost never sees the silver lining to any cloud, but rather the poor town that was washed away by the flood from the rain that the cloud caused. (say that three times fast, I dare you!)

If you had taken the Siberian Railway as the two of you had originally intended, you most likely would have seen folks there reading Theroux’s “Riding the Iron Rooster”–at least for the Chinese portion of the trip–and it would have been the same. (or same-same)

If you take what he writes with a big grain of salt (lauren, you have lots of these b/c you still talk to me), then it can be a worthy read–just do not expect it to be all that accurate from what you see with your own eyes. The nice thing about reading his stuff is that it gets your hopes waaay down about a place before you get there—so even if it sucks, it will still be paradise compared to the way Theroux describes it!

Just my two cents.