Michael Portillo resumes his rail journey from Lucknow to Kolkata following his 1913 Bradshaw’s Handbook of Indian, Foreign and Colonial Travel. He visits the Buddhist monks of Bodh Gaya, where he finds the sacred bodhi tree underneath which Buddha achieved enlightenment and he is given a lesson in meditation.

200 miles south east, Michael discovers a vast locomotive works at Chittaranjan with an extraordinary 980 metre-long workshop.
The final leg of his journey takes Michael 120 miles to Kolkata, capital of West Bengal, formerly the capital of British India. Battling the crowds at India’s busiest station, Michael hails one of the city’s famous yellow Ambassador taxis to the country’s oldest existing hotel, and mentioned in his Bradshaw’s. Show less