• In The Guardian Miranda Krestovnikoff enjoys a Family food adventure in Ireland. “What is usually considered an adult holiday concept, could surely be adopted for little ones? Fun farm visits, tastings and activities would teach them a little about where food comes from. No need to go far when just a ferry ride away lies the south of Ireland, renowned for wonderful farm produce and seafood.”
• Dan Packel in The New York Times is Curing the Monsoon Blues in Mumbai’s Cafes. “One of the best ways to do so is to find a cafe — one with good views of the cascading showers, of course — and settle in with a cup of tea, a snack or a hearty lunch.”
• “Perhaps because of this huge mixture of cultures and communities, Beirut has always excelled at food, and now some Lebanese activists are trying to overcome the open wounds among its many factions by cooking and eating together.” In The Guardian Rebecca Seal indulges in A taste of Beirut.

Every Laotian family sends its sons to a monastery. It offers an opportunity for secular education, as well as the study of philosophy and the disciplines of Buddhism and it freed the household of the burden of an extra mouth to feed. I spoke to several such students and all seemed content. I never felt they had been forced into training against their will. I also noticed their gentility and grace.

On our second morning anchored in Luang Prabang, I rose before dawn for the ceremony of alms-giving. Filing out from all the temples in this holy city were orange monks. Each carried a small basket, usually with a flip-open lid. As they walked the streets, seated women gave each and every one a small handful of sticky rice. The men who were almsgiving were allowed to stand. The rule is that women must keep their heads lower than the monks.
The ritual was carried out in silence; it began in darkness and by the time the monks had made their passage round the town and gathered their day’s victuals, the sun had risen. It was a memorable spectacle.

Luang Prabang was such a laid-back place; a city to reawaken the soul’s stirrings. In fact, it was my overriding impression of all that I saw of Laos, but unfortunately behind all this were the worries for the future. Each and every one of these river people are facing an uncertain tomorrow…

After visiting one of Luang Prabang’s bustling markets, I sat alone to contemplate a view of one of the river’s tributaries. There, I fell into conversation with a local fisherman, an elderly fellow with a face as weather-beaten as worn sandpaper. He spoke remarkably good French and confided how life was changing for everyone in his country as well as the other five countries bordering this ‘bounteous mother of waters’. Tourism, he said, shaking his head, was the only future remaining to them and that would also bring concerns. The dams in China (Laos also has plans to build a dam of its own) are causing major environmental problems. From his point of view, the fish were particularly endangered. Of the hundreds of species of fish in the river, over 80% are migratory. When the dams closed off the water flow and the southern sections of the river became dry, the fish had nowhere to go or breed. And the local people had no means of earning a living or feeding their families. ‘Our traditions will die out. Hotels are being built to create a new means of livelihood and tourism will change the geographical face of our region,’ he sighed.

Vientiane

Vientiane (meaning Sandalwood City) was destroyed by the Siamese in 1828 and rebuilt by the French in 1900 and again in 1931. Today, stallholders wheel their fruit wares about the streets or, displayed woven plates of delicious little rice cakes outside their doors. Down along the scruffy waterfront where the Mekong was so distant it appeared tidal, I saw a man cross-legged on the grubby sand collecting and cleaning used bottle tops from the ground.
I found Vientiane to be a dusty metropolis of bland modernity, yet a city of contradictions where monks and military walked side by side or sat together on street corners. Italso had many magnificently opulent temples and palaces. Yet Vientiane did not inspire me or light up my soul as Luang Prabang had done and I was not too sorry to say goodbye and move on to Cambodia. Sadly, this was also where we bid farewell to our floating home, the Mekong Sun. The rapids and waterfalls further south made the journey into Cambodia by boat too treacherous. We travelled on from here to Siem Reap in a private aircraft.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Angkor lies approximately six kilometres north of the modern city of Siem Reap, which is north of Tonlé Sap, a tributary of the Mekong and the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. Angkor was a temple complex and city built by the Khmer in the twelfth-century. (Angkor Wat means City Temple). It has become a symbol of Cambodia, is represented on their national flag and, without argument, is the biggest tourist attraction within this war-ravaged country.

By the time we arrived, it was the second week of February and the Chinese (or Vietnamese, Cambodian) New Year was in full swing and the temples were overrun with tourists who expressed little respect for the spirituality of these holy places. Angkor is a magnificent legacy of Asian history and after the quietude of our slow passage down the Mekong, the clamouring was hard to take. Nevertheless, watching the dawn come up over the walled city of Angkor Thom, marvelling at the sun climbing in the sky and spilling its carmine-red reflection across the ruins and moat takes some beating no matter how many thousands of people are sharing the experience with you.

My personal favourite was Ta Prohm Temple. It is an unrestored site, used as an eerie location in the film Tomb Raider. What made it so remarkable was the almost symbiotic relationship it displays between jungle and masonry. It was originally built in the 12th and early 13th century as a temple and university but once the Khmer empire disintegrated in the 15th century, it was abandoned and fell into ruin. While the principle temples such as Angkor have been restored, Ta Prohm has been left to decay and stand as a fabulously pictorial witness to both the force of nature and the staying power of the Khmer structures. It has merged with the jungle and everywhere the roots of the silk-cotton and strangler fig trees move through the ancient buildings, wrapping themselves about the brickwork like silent reptiles.

Returning to my hotel early one morning, I was surprised to see that the moat encircling Angkor was being hand cleaned by local men and women. I watched from a bridge as they fished out what looked like algae and tossed it onto the banks. As you can see in this photograph, they wore hats and face masks but were fully clothed and not protected in any other way. It highlighted for me how poor the majority of the citizens in Cambodia are and how high the rate of unemployment is, although the government has put in place many programmes to rebuild the infrastructure of this remarkable, yet devastated country.

After his second visit to Angkor Wat, the English novelist, Somerset Maugham, pronounced that ‘No one should die before seeing the temples of Angkor’. He would possibly have made the circuit by elephant and it would have been a far more serene experience. Alas, those early days of tourism are over. Still, I will return to Angkor, but it is the water beyond, the Mekong itself, that truly beckons me back. There is rarely a day that I do not recall an image or two from my Mekong voyage, brief as it was. I frequently dream of continuing that slow boat journey I embarked upon in northern Laos. I long to discover the Tonlé Sap (the flowing heart of Cambodia) with its remarkable shifts of river flow and its uniquely rich source of aquatic life, to participate in the Mekong’s water festivals and to follow the Mekong to its delta in Vietnam and its final plunge into the South China Sea.

Carol Drinkwater flew to Vietnam with Captain’s Choice Tours; www.captainschoice.co.uk. The river cruise was with cruisemekong.com (it can be booked by Captain’s Choice or independently); www.cruisemekong.com.

Images and text by Carol Drinkwater. Her latest book is The Olive Tree by (Phoenix, £7.99); www.caroldrinkwater.com

An Overnight Stop

Each evening before sunset, our skipper would look for a suitable anchorage, a sufficiently steep bank to ensure we would not be beached. Flocks of children and inquisitive inhabitants appeared from out of the forest to observe this arrival. This was a rare sight for them and they were amazed by this the floating ‘palace’ motoring to shore.

At first, there were but a trio of naked youngsters but soon a crowd began to grow, bemused by our presence.

Once secured, the sturdy galley, which was surprisingly comfortable, swung with the current, floating like a great insect on the water’s surface. As soon as we began to disembark our audience disappeared from sight. All but one…

This lady, one of the river people, was digging in her allotment. As we disembarked, she dropped her utensils and approached us. Beckoning to me, she offered a handful of vegetables and bid me follow her into her palm-thatched shack. A kerosene lamp with flying insects encircling it, lit up the space where wooden planks made up a bed and a kettle on an open fire by the entrance steamed. Her home was across the river but she slept here most nights, unable to return to her family.

Willing crew members were dispatched into the dense forest to cut swathes of banana fronds. These were used to create an al fresco dining room on the beach with an open fire on which we cooked a fabulous selection of fresh seafood. Corks were pulled, glasses were poured and we sat on the sand listening to the river gurgling in the darkness. The atmosphere was joyful beneath the starlit sky. I rose to take a nocturnal stroll along the bank and met the lady whose hut I had visited standing within the shadows. She was watching us discreetly, foreigners dancing to the local music, but she was shivering in a thin cotton blouse. I removed my cardigan and handed it to her.

The following morning I was up and dressed while the boat slept on. Only one other guest was on shore before me. The mist over the water was unforgettable; rocks rose up out of the grey light like beasts awakening. On the far bank I heard the cries of an unseen drover guiding his small herd of buffalo to the river’s edge.

Waiting on the shore was the vegetable farmer holding my cardigan. She handed it to me, muttering words I could not understand. I shook my head, suggested she keep it and she hugged me tightly, muttering ‘Bon voyage’. The delight, the gratitude in her eyes was really quite humbling.

Heading south, daylight still not upon us, I felt like the first of all explorers to negotiate these waters. This might have been a time before history when, like this morning, nothing but rocks, water and land had existed here.

Luang Prabang

Built on a significant bend in the river, Luang Prabang, today a World Heritage Site, was once upon a time the royal capital of Laos. I thought it an exquisite town with its temples and palaces. It exuded an air of serenity and was an easy city to navigate. The length and breadth can be covered in a couple of hours’ walking yet it boasts over thirty temples. During my stay, each afternoon at four, handfuls of monks appeared in the grounds of several of the temples and beat drums and cymbals. The metallic, sonorous sounds echoed to the far banks of the river.

If I had to pick a favourite temple, I would choose Wat Xieng Thong, also known as Golden City Temple or Golden Tree Monastery. It is situated at the northern tip of a peninsula formed by two rivers, the Mekong and Nam Khan. Built in 1560 by King Setthathirat, it is one of the most important temples in all Laos and it’s not difficult to see why. Its beauty is breathtaking with gold leaf designs and traditional wood carvings.

Out in the courtyard, I fell into conversation with an teenage monk who was studying at a table in the shade. He told me in faltering English that this was one of only two wats left undamaged when the city was ransacked by the Black Flag Gang in 1887. It had remained intact because the leader of the rebels had taken religious studies here and decided that he would use it as his headquarters. ‘Fine behaviour for a trained monk,’ I jested.

Shaven-headed monks in bare feet and saffron robes strolled the streets or were studying at shaded tables in the tropical gardens. They were always keen to engage in conversation, to practice their English or French. I have rarely felt more at peace anywhere in the world than in this city of French colonial architecture, tall, spreading trees, exquisitely wrought temples and, feeding Luang Prabang’s communications with the outside world, the Mekong that flowed steadily by.

Images and text by Carol Drinkwater. Her latest book is The Olive Tree by (Phoenix, £7.99); www.caroldrinkwater.com

I had been invited to join a small party of tourists who were about to embark on a rather unusual adventure. I accepted readily. It happened to be an excursion that I had dreamed of for many a year: a firsthand discovery of the Mekong River by boat. From the coast of Thailand’s Golden Triangle, close to Chiang Rai, I looked out across the sludge-brown, fast-flowing river to the gold-domed casino dominating the frontier between Burma, (today known as Myanmar) and the banks of Northern Laos. The Mekong had long held a fascination for me, as it had for the 19th century French explorers, Lagrée and Garnier, who between 1866 and 1868 had beat a brave path north in small dugout canoes in search of this mighty river’s source in Tibet. Today, we know that the river tumbles from glacier streams within the Tibetan Plateau into China’s Yunnan province, south to Myanmar (meaning Land of Paradise); on to Thailand and Laos, then Cambodia and Vietnam where it empties its waters into the South China Sea. Six countries flank its banks on a trajectory south that covers more than 4200 kilometres.

Beyond the tiny customs checkpoint at the boat pier of Chiang Khong, I said my farewells to northern Thailand where a six-seater ferryboat transported me east on my first brief crossing of the Mae Nam Khong (Thai name for the Mekong) to Huay Xai, northern Laos. There, I boarded an elegant teak and mahogany galley, The Mekong Sun. We were a dozen passengers plus captain and crew. Our itinerary was to take five days, south to Vientiane, the modern capital of Laos.

On the Water

Nosing gently southwards, the water was the colour of hessian sacking. I had heard stories of the river’s pollution but this tint was caused by the free standing mud and sandbanks we were to discover all the way along our journey. Laos was on our left and Thailand, right. The Mekong, swirling and eddying round the formidable tobacco-brown boulders planted at the water’s edge, was a living force. The twelfth longest river in the world. The Laotian littoral presented a picture of dense virgin forest. We spied occasional solitary houses constructed out of woven palm leaves erected on wooden poles. Handfuls of farmers were growing vegetables along the sloping mudbanks.

Across on the right riverbank, the Thai farmers, traditionally rice-growers, were switching to soya production, our guide told me. Soya required less irrigation and, incredibly, a water crisis was at play. This season had seen the lowest water levels in 140 years. ‘Dams built in China are draining the Mekong. It is both an environmental and commercial catastrophe, depriving millions of Asians of their livelihoods.’ The Mekong Sun had been out of action for the past 27 days having run aground. ‘There had been nothing for it but to wait for the water to flow again.’ We were travelling at a time when the levels were naturally low but heavy rains elsewhere in the mountains could drastically change sailing conditions. At every stage a member of the crew was sounding the sludgy depths with a long cane, always probing for the navigable channels. At some points, it was a mere metre deep.

Although, because roads within the forests are little more than dirt tracks, the river is the main highway, traffic was minimal. Small diesel-powered boats carrying everything from pigs to rice sacks and cement putted by us and occasionally a lengthier vessel rounded a river bend, packed solid with passengers. These were the waterbuses from which the people waved or stared. Hefty tree trunks floating downstream can be a sign of the extensive logging taking place in both Thailand and Laos, but I saw few. Our vessel’s pace was steady, ideally suited to discovery. It was the ‘slow boat from China’ that I had always dreamed of and offered me the opportunity to absorb plenty, to stare at mile after mile of pristine jungle, as we chugged serenely along our way.

Laotian Village

After three hours sailing we dropped anchor, boarded flat-bottomed dinghies and headed inland along a narrow tributary. From a tiny wooden landing stage we followed a winding dirt track. There was only silence and the high-pitched whisperings of dense rainforest; an absence of planes, motors, urban shrill. The only sounds were the bird calls high above us in the trees’ canopy and our footfall. We arrived at a traditional Laotian village where the villagers, particularly the children, greeted us eagerly, though from some there was hesitancy. I asked our guide, Wolfram, (the boat was German-Laotian owned), how frequently these inhabitants encountered foreigners.‘Tourism does not really exist here,’ he replied. However, the Mekong Sun made this journey perhaps five times a year, dependent upon the water conditions.

The village, whose name I never learned, was being fitted out with electricity in return for making itself available to excursions such as ours. Aside from the electricity cables, there were few signs of modernity. Conditions were basic. I was told there was a school but I did not locate it. In any case, the children were obliged to assist their parents. There was little time for education. These villagers earned their living by cropping long grasses, drying them in the sun and weaving them into brooms, which were then sold at markets further inland and frequently exported. Otherwise, they reared poultry and a few pigs. Their farm work was achieved by hand, during long hours with few tools. The crops – rice, maize, peanuts, a variety of vegetables – were grown in neighbouring fields. Flax was cultivated to make clothes. From the age of five, the girls were taught weaving.

This woman lived alone. She was less certain of the foreigners walking through the dusty streets of her natal village.

Approximately 200 inhabitants lived in what I sensed to be a bonded community. Men lounged on porches, smoking cigarettes, deep in discussion while the womwn cared for the babies. The older children played in groups or followed us as we took photographs. They were tactile and loving with one another. I even observed them picking nits out of each other’s hair.

Once we departed the Laotian village, we saw no signs of modern life at all, not a single electricity cable or pylon. Nature and rurality existed side by side as they must have done for centuries, if not millennia.

Images and text by Carol Drinkwater. Her latest book is The Olive Tree by (Phoenix, £7.99); www.caroldrinkwater.com

CITY

• Donald Strachan offers us The smart guide to Turin in The Times. “Under-rated Turin is northern Italy’s culinary capital, a Wonka-esque paradise for chocolate lovers, home of Europe’s longest-lasting royal house, Catholic Christianity’s holiest relic, and the best collection of Egyptian artefacts outside Cairo.” Strachan gives us the highlights of this northern Italian city.
• In The New York Times, Paola Singer gives us the best of 36 Hours in Buenos Aires. “This attractive city continues to draw food lovers, design buffs and party people with its riotous night life, fashion-forward styling and a favorable exchange rate. Even with the uncertain economy, the creative energy and enterprising spirit of Porteños, as residents are called, prevail — just look to the growing ranks of art spaces, boutiques, restaurants and hotels.”
• In The Telegraph Stephen McClarence  describes Delhi as “a hectic but unfailingly vibrant place,” and advises visitors not to leave it at the first instance…”Delhi deserves more time than that. With India’s economy booming, it’s an ever-changing city, no longer just the staid home of pen-pushing bureaucrats. It has real urban glamour.” McClarience shares his highlights in City guide: delving into the secrets of Delhi.
• The Guardian’s Ruth Fowler does away with Venice Beach’s “dogtown” reputation. It “has been transformed into a beautiful, eclectic area of the city that, like the East Village in Manhattan, or London’s Notting Hill, has taken its quirky, murky past and reinvented it without denying its roots…Venice is a real neighbourhood, where people smile at you, take the time to find out your name and inquire, with friendly interest, about your life – even if you’re a stranger, even if there’s no chance you’re going to leave them a $20 tip.” Venice Beach: from nasty to nice.
• In The Independent Cathy Packe brings us The Traveller’s Guide To: Chopin. “This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederic Chopin. It will be celebrated in style with concerts and exhibitions around the world, but nowhere more enthusiastically than in Poland.” The cities that will be celebrating Chopin include Warsaw, Paris and London.

ESCAPE

• “Milos lies at the edge of the Cyclades archipelago. Its tiny airport cannot handle jet aircraft and the ferry from Athens takes up to eight hours…“We don’t have the British,” a local travel agent told me cheerfully, much in the way that one might declare oneself free of a genital disease,” writes Will Pavia in The Times.  “With every passing day we, too, became more attached to the place, with its extraordinary beaches and whitewashed towns wrapped around mountains like scarves.”  Is Milos, the best-kept secret in the Cyclades?
• In The FT Madhur Jaffrey’s explains that her dream holiday is as follows – “such a place has always been a tropical island, warm but with uplifting breezes, where nature offers up more than just coconut palms and sand. Perhaps hundreds of giant tortoises of the dinosaur period to marvel at? Perhaps strange rookeries for millions of birds? Perhaps local produce transformed into an intriguing cuisine? Along with these wild wonders of nature, I would also want luxurious quarters and soft white sheets.” Does such a place exist? It appears so…A private island in the Seychelles.
• In The Observer Teresa Machan discovers Long life and happiness in Japan’s sunshine isles. “An island archipelago flung 1,000km across the Pacific, Okinawa is Japan, but not as we know it…Among its biggest draws are the people. A happy, welcoming if endearingly bonkers lot, the dark-skinned Okinawans are an origin-defying blend of South Pacific-meets-North Asia, with a dash of the Inuit for good measure.”
• “I normally approach beach holidays with the kind of enthusiasm I reserve for minor surgery. I don’t mind spending an afternoon on the beach and I like swimming but I have far too much energy and too little pigment to spend a week lying down, soaking up rays,” writes Rhymer Rigby in the FT, who discovers the hidden benefits of A Malaysian beach holiday. “At 11am on the second day, I wedged my daughter into her backpack and walked to the rear of the resort…As we entered, we were immediately surrounded by the screeching of dozens of monkeys in the trees. Soon, we were alone in a rainforest that could have been on Borneo.”
• In The Times Lucy Daltroff is Crossing the line into North Cyprus, the lesser known Turkish part of the island. “Long hours of sunshine, a fantastic history, and beautiful natural fauna and flora immediately makes up for the inconvenience of sitting slightly longer on a plane…there is a saying in North Cyprus that no one ever visits just once.”

OUTDOOR / ADVENTURE

• “Wow, life really can be a bummer. It’s 14 January and I’m sitting on the Heathrow Express, reading in the paper that Scotland is buried under snow, its ski resorts rejoicing in the best conditions for a decade. Meanwhile, Scandinavia has epic amounts of powder, the Alps are having a superb month and there’s so much of the white stuff in London that people are skiing on Hampstead Heath. And this is the year I choose to go all the way to India, to ski in the Himalayas where, for the first time in 15 years, there’s no snow.” In The Observer Tom Robbins hears The call of Kashmir.
• The photograph that accompanies Jane Owen’s article in the FT, Kayaking at night in the Cayman Islands, must have been digitally enhanced. The article begins – “It is a moonless Caribbean night and, apart from a few twinkling stars, the only light comes from the sea immediately around our four kayaks. The boats have a halo of pale gold and leave shimmering trails in their wake. Every time our paddles lift out of the water they drip molten gold as if they’d been touched by a watery Midas.” Let Owen transport you to paradise…
• “The next morning, I turned away from the dazzling coast and took the road inland to bandit country,” writes Stanley Stewart in The Times, who leaves the glamour of the Emerald Coast behind and decides to Head inland for Sardinia’s hidden heart. “Blessed with great bone structure, the Sardinian interior is what granite has made it — unruly and unpredictable. Streams plunged into sudden gorges. Sheep strayed among boulders. Mountain peaks reared into shapes that pagan societies would have worshipped.”
• If you want to get a true taste of Cambodia: A beautiful, haunting and heart-breaking country, Christina Patterson, in The Independent, says “you have to see the killing fields. You have to see the beauty born out of blood, and the courage that has grown – yes, like a pearl – out of suffering beyond imagining.”
• In The New York Times Morgan McGinley takes A Long Road to World-Class Fly Fishing in New Zealand. “There’s no mistaking that this is a world-class fly-fishing destination…Only superb fishing could justify the 22 hours of flights that had taken us from Boston to San Francisco, to Auckland, Christchurch and then to Invercargill.”
  

FOOD

• For a flavour of South-east Asia, eat local advises Andrew Spooner in The Independent. “Adventurous visitors can embark on an epicurean journey of some proportions in South-east Asia…ook for the busiest places – the humblest back-street eateries can be packed to the rafters, queues forming with eager diners. Even if you don’t know what’s on the menu, get in line because you’re sure to find something tasty. Don’t be shy – lift up pot lids, poke about a bit, ask questions. Most Asian budget eateries are used to this and it can be a great way to communicate, enabling you to order food exactly to your specification.”
• “Over six days in late November, I submerged myself in Tokyo’s ramen culture, eating roughly four bowls a day at shops both fancy and spartan, modern and ganko, trying to suss out not just what makes a good bowl but also the intricacies of ordering and eating well,” writes Matt Gross in The New York Times. “Above all, I wanted to know why such a simple concoction — brought from China by Confucian missionaries in the 17th century — inspired so much passion and devotion among Japanese and foreigners alike…” Gross is discovering Japanese culture and Exploring Tokyo Through Its Ramen Shops.
• Larry Rohter reveals where Museum Cafes Morph Into Fine Dining Establishments in The New York Times. “Last month sleek new restaurants with sophisticated menus opened in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Arts and Design. The Whitney Museum of American Art has just announced plans to open a new cafe during the second half of this year, to be run by the celebrated restaurateur Danny Meyer, and at least two other smaller art museums in Manhattan are in negotiations to install restaurants or cafes.”
• In The Guardian Isabel Choat travels to Andalucía, Spain’s virgin territory.  “…this inland enclave of Andalucía, the Sierras Subbéticas, is known for its olive oil. Within the local denominación de origen of Priego de Córdoba there are 30,000 hectares of olive groves, 7,000 farms, nine mills, 14 commercial plants and four co-operatives, producing some of the finest olive oil, not just in Spain, but in the world. Never heard of it? That’s because Priego de Córdoba has the product, but not necessarily the marketing nous needed to promote it.”

PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES

• “I was in Almeria Spain, deep-south Spain, where the scorched earth and shimmering tarmac are barely troubled by traffic, much less Vespas, to embark on a four-day tour of the region’s beaches, mountains and desert-like interior.” In The Times Paul Croughton discovers Almeria, Spain, by moped…”Dave and I quickly realised there are only two ways to negotiate such terrain: slowly and carefully, or speedily and carelessly.”
• “And so I hung precariously from the back of a rented mountain bike, my posterior grazing the spinning rear wheel as the device hurtled dementedly downwards through Queensland rainforest. I’m afraid that I let out a low, wobbling wail. The pleasant beaches of Noosa seemed a long way below.” Oliver Duff goes Off-road in Queensland.
• In The Guardian Douglas Rogers does The rail thing: across America by train. “When most of us think of travelling across the US we think of taking a car, and indeed just such a road trip had long been a dream of mine…Then I remembered Amtrak. America’s federally run rail service has more than two dozen routes around the country, and I discovered that you can travel from New York to LA in four days, having to change trains only once.” Rogers reports on the America that rolls by…