Biking Around the World while Never Going Anywhere

Each winter, over the last five or six years I've been exploring the world, virtually, from the cabs of trains while spending half an hour riding my bike-on-a-rack. Hundreds of train drivers have posted videos of the routes they run to YouTube, and using a laptop computer on a rack attached to the handlebars, I've traveled the rail lines of Europe, from Bulgaria to Finland, Norway to Portugal, Britain to Poland, and all the countries in between. I've taken trains in Japan, and last winter I explored the North and South islands of New Zealand, where is seems you can't toss a stone without hitting either a cow or a sheep. I took some train rides in Brazil, but Brazil is a big country, so I saw only a little of it, though I did take some trolly rides through one or two of its cities, which was interesting. I also caught up on a few routes in France that I hadn't ridden on before, and ended up crisscrossing Poland, mostly from the rear carriage, filmed by a fellow who seems intent to ride and film every train in Poland that still has old fashioned trains with carriages without an engine on both ends.

This fall I started out in Australia, taking trains out of Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney. However, I have to admit that, as an American, the Australian countryside is not very exotic - flat ranch land, a few hills every now and again, and where there are trees, they line the ralline hiding the countryside. Sort of boring. So I went looking for someplace more exotic.

I first took a ride on a commuter train through Manila in the Philippians. Now trains often travel through the backyards of wherever you are, so you're not seeing the best face of any city you're passing through, but, I have to say, the Manila train traveled through something of an urban wasteland. Trash, junk, chickens, and shanties lined the right of way in all stages of disrepair. Exotic? Yes. As well as eye opening to the relative poverty of at least some of the inhabitants. Though while one can live more casually in the tropics than in temperate climate with winters, poverty is poverty. And I should add that this is far from the only country where I've seen trash dumped along the railway tracks. Indeed, there were places where trash had been dumped on the next country I visited this winter.

And that country was Sri Lanka. I really have loved exploring Sri Lanka. It has  the exoticness and beauty I was looking for.

https://www.bradtguides.com/sri-lanka-by-train

Sri Lanka is exotic. Oh you have your shanties along with every sort of housing in every sort of setting, as well as Buddhists shrines and monasteries/temples. The streets are filled with those three-wheeled motorized rickshaws. Ladies carry umbrellas for sunshine rather than rain. In the countryside cows graze at will. And Sri Lanka is the only country I've run across where the people use the rail tracks as footpaths. Where there is a double line, there are always people walking in the other line, and on single lines, you often see people just standing alongside the tracks - no doubt having just stepped off of them to let the train pass.

The trains themselves are varied, and usually slow. In all but the first class carriages, the windows are open, as are all the carriage doors, where people stand or sit as the train goes along, and tourists get their photos taken hanging out of them.

And as for the countryside itself, is can be breathtaking. In parts of the country the steep mountainsides are covered with terraces of tea bushes, and in the low country there are rice paddies and palm trees. In between there are patches of lush jungle. I still have a few more videos to watch covering a route that I saw snatches of, but which I hope will take me back up the tea growing region. They are still being release once a week but I hope they take me to the end of the line.

If you are curious, here's a  3 hours and 40 minute train ride down the western seacoast from Fort Columbo to Galle, near the southern point of Sri Lanka. You can find it HERE

In the meantime, I'm currently taking a commuter train through Mumbai India, and I have a train ride in Viet Nam lined up as well.

Real travelers may scoff at my virtual travels, but I have to say that moving pictures are a thousand times more immersive than photos, and not all that far away from driving in a car with the windows closed. You miss the smells and the ability to gawk around, but you also get to know how trains work. You also miss all those churches, castles, and museums that real tourist feel compelled to visit, but frankly, they're welcome to them. I'll take the countryside, away from traffic and crowds. Plus, in my case, given my poor memory, I'm taking away from my travels just about all I would be if I'd done it for real, so for me, it's the ideal way to travel.