Travelling from Brighton Pavilion to the Taj Mahal by rail

Nick Pulley’s epic rail adventure began with one simple question: can it be done? Is it possible to travel from Brighton Pavilion in the United Kingdom to the Taj Mahal in India by rail? 13,277km, 13 borders, 38 trains and 61 days later, he answered his own question and discovered a mesmerising world of rail travel.  

His journey took him through countries including Romania, Bulgaria, Iran, Türkiye and Pakistan, but it was the people he met who remained with him – their warmth and authenticity. In fact, he was so enamoured by his conversations with locals and railway mishaps that when speaking to us, he almost forgot to mention that he had received a blessing from the Dalai Lama towards the end of his trip. Here, Nick describes the highlights of his epic journey including desert vistas, local tour guides, historical trains and serendipitous moments. 

The idea initially came from the sustainability angle. I had been watching a series of videos on net-zero and it just piqued my interest, and I started to wonder, ‘is it technically possible to get to Southern Asia by train?’ I realised you could, and it spun out of that.  

I’m really intrigued by the whole geopolitical landscape and the narratives that are drilled into us. Throughout the whole planning process, probably 70% of the airwave was taken up with Iran. Should I? Can I? Will I? When I left the UK, I didn’t know if I was going to go through. But I went down through Eastern Europe, and it was a really interesting personal, metaphorical journey for me. I was rewarded twenty times over – it was staggering. 

I formed good connections and just went out there and spoke to people. I don’t actually like research on the internet as it just leads everyone down the same path. I’m also not necessarily going somewhere for the obvious highlight. I am much more intrigued by the pavement-level stuff and the conversations, so all through Europe we didn’t have a set agenda; we left that very flexible.  

The train schedule in Turkey and Iran was fixed because you have to book them so far in advance. For Indian trains, you need to book three months in advance now. I travelled in India a lot in my 20s and you used to just turn up at the station and get on the train but that is not how it works anymore because they are so busy. 

When I got to Iran it was really uncomfortable because I was the only Western tourist. I went to Tabriz for a few days and then to Tehran. Tehran is engulfed by these incredible snow-capped mountains – you can get a cable car from the centre and be at 4,000m within half an hour – and I went walking up there for a couple of days. I came back a completely different person and it was then that I realised how much I had been projecting my feelings onto the situation because I was scared. What then started to happen was, people were coming up and having really meaningful conversations with me – it was lovely. They were just expressing their gratitude for me being there. It’s a magical country and I will go back. 

Travelling through Bulgaria was magical. The countryside was mind-blowingly beautiful and by this point the trains had become real tin-cans, so it was becoming much more interesting too. We were getting into these rust buckets and making tight connections. We did a real zigzag all over Southern Bulgaria, but it was absolutely worth it. 

Travelling through the Iranian desert was mesmerising too. I’ve not even seen anything like it in sci-fi films – you’ve got these incredible desert areas and then way out in the distance, these amazing mountains. From there, we then went through the Lut desert which has insane sand dunes and rock outcrops – otherworldly. I didn’t know somewhere like that existed. There’s this one area, about 200km from where I was, where there’s a natural decline in the level of the ground so it forms this cauldron that locks in heat. That’s the hottest place on earth.  

When I crossed the Wagah border – everyone takes the bus to Amritsar – I really wanted to get on the train. It was a drunk guy on a cyclo that agreed to take me – nobody in a motorised vehicle offered – and every time we hit a slight incline, I got off the thing and walked alongside him and helped push it. Suffice to say, I tipped very heavily but I think I know what it was being spent on. I got to the train station, and I was sat on this platform with no one else there; it was really poignant and emotional – I was so grateful for having chosen to do it. 

In Romania, I had been introduced to a guide called Lucien near a place called Brasov in the Carpathian Mountains. We spent a few days walking there and he was incredible. He’s a real adventure buff himself – he had represented Romania at world cups and maybe even in the Olympics in ski touring, so he was a real man of the mountains. He’d been in the military at the time that the USSR folded too, so he was sort of there at the front line. In our minds, in the two days we were with him, we toured the entire country because he took us there through his stories. He had travelled so widely there. 

In Iran, I was fortunate that I had a phenomenal guide called Mehrdad who, within a day, had become a close friend. He was just brilliant company, so informative and understood how hungry I was to learn. And the trains are just a breeding place for conversation. I was getting up and watching the sunrises and everywhere I went I was being encouraged to go into people’s houses. Anyone I met would say, “can I give you my phone number? If you need anything while you’re here, let me know” – that was incredibly warming.  

How unbored I became with train travel. I loved all of it, every element. I thought I was going to be headphones in and Kindle out, but I just looked out the window. It was only when it started to get dark that I became aware of the time. I did half a dozen journeys that were 18 hours plus and that was, without question, the highlight. You have this visceral relationship with everything you go past: fields, bright turban-clad women picking in the fields, bulls and crazy tuk-tuks, and everything is moving so slowly that you get this connection with people, very different to charging around in the back of a vehicle. Also, the goodness of everyday people. You forget it and this trip was a great opportunity to engage in conversation. 

Leave room for serendipity; leave room for things going wrong, and when things do go wrong, embrace it. During the journey, put the book away, have your head up and look out, or you’re missing so much. Look for the opportunities to interact with people because that’s the stuff you will remember.  

I was firm with myself about not running ahead with the trip in my mind. I knew a little way out that I was going to get a blessing from the Dalai Lama and that could have overshadowed Pakistan for me, but I stopped myself thinking about it. I applied that same logic to every part of the trip. Give each day its due and challenge yourself to try something different – I think that’s so important. I will forever be richer for this journey.