Arriving late in Kyoto Patrick Holland cannot find a room for the night. Homeless and disorientated and in a place where loitering is not encouraged his only solution is to ride the trains. The train journey is the starting point for a book?that also describes travels through Vietnam, mountains in the Chinese Himalaya, lost cities of the Silk Road,?mist-swathed cemeteries in Japan and the flat plains of Australia, and subtly questions the nature of travel and identity through reflections on place, mortality and the changing Asian landscape.