Easy like Sunday morning

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes: Marcel Proust

1 On October 2, 1872, in  Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, Phileas Fogg reads an article in  The Telegraph about a new railway line in India. The adventure then begins because Fogg wants to prove that an 80-day voyage around the world is possible. The novel, though fictional, is based on various events in the 19th century. India’s first train was the Red Hill Railway in 1837 which was used to transport laterite stone for road-building work in which city?

2 Jules Verne’s earlier science fiction novel  Journey to the Center of the Earth was about a German scientist and his nephew discovering an ancient world under the Earth’s crust. The voyage begins by them and a guide rappelling into Snæfellsjökull. This is an actual glacier-capped stratovolcano which tourists can visit till today. After 700,000 years, in 2012, the summit became ice-free for the first time, causing much distress to climate change activists. In which country is this?

3 Verne’s third voyage book  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea tells the tale of a mysterious Captain Nemo, who travels around the world in a futuristic submarine which the American government mistakes for a sea monster. In 1958, the U.S. government launched the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. Named to honour Captain Nemo’s vehicle, what was its name?

4 Ibn Battuta was an explorer who for over 30 years travelled over 117,000 km through Central Asia, China and the Indian sub-continent. His voyages are filled with adventures, meeting the last Mongol ruler, the Khan of the Golden Horde, Muhammad bin Tughluq and even worked in Madurai and the Maldives. The Ibn Battuta Mall, which is the world’s largest themed shopping mall, is designed around his travels. In which city is this?

5 Xuanzang was a Chinese monk who travelled across China and India in his efforts to bring Indian texts to China. During his extensive travels in India he also studied at what historians believe to be the world’s first residential university. Found in Bihar, it was responsible for promoting arts and academics during the 5th century. What is the name of this university?

6 This explorer’s 26-year-long journey is recorded in  Book of the Marvels of the World. He was a Venetian merchant who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road and was one of the first to document the wealth and size of the Mongol Empire. He first came to India as an emissary of the great Kublai Khan and his report of Asian plants inspired Christopher Columbus to travel. Who was this explorer whose name lives on in the form a children’s game of hide-and-seek?

7 This explorer was the first person to link Europe and Asia through sea routes in 1497. By doing so he opened up a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism. When he landed in Calicut in 1498 it also allowed the advent of global imperialism, effects of which are felt till date. Who was this person whose trips at that time were the longest ocean-voyages in history?