Persistent and cheering children swarm around me as if they could read my mind, but the sacred vagrant cows remain unflappable. It’s our last day in India and I can’t sleep. My senses are teeming with sights, smells, sounds, and contrasts: the riches of the palaces and the mud huts of the desert people. The massive forts and the opalescent Taj Mahal. The bleakness of the decrepit streets and the joyful brightness of saris. Families perched on mopeds, whiffs of fragrant spices, stagnant stench, blaring sounds, appeasing classical music… By day’s end, I welcome our retreat aboard the Palace of Wheels.
A Luxury Steam Engine Train
A trip to Rajasthan had been on my bucket list and the logistics were on our hesitant minds. Then we heard of the Palace on Wheels. This unusual tourist transportation in a developing country is the easiest way to access the major cities of the Golden Triangle: Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Ranthambore, Udaipur, and Agra. Located in northwestern India, Rajasthan is India’s largest state. The North was the cradle of the Hindu religion, and later of the ruling Rajput caste. During British rule (1858-1947), Rajasthan was known as Rajputana and referred to as The Raj.
We are catapulted more than transported through the blazing organized chaos of India’s capital and are on time for our check-in and departure from the Delhi Cantonment. Established by the British Army during The Raj, it’s where most trains to Rajasthan depart. Hostesses in saris welcome us with garlands of flowers and a dab of tikka, a red dot, between our eyebrows.
The 14-coach-long train was built to replicate those fit for Maharajahs and replaced the disabled Orient Express. Luxury, however, is about convenience and not lavish accommodation. Like on a cruise, we travel at night in a cabin slightly wider than the train tracks. The en-suite bathroom is the size of a converted cabin. It’s old but spacious and clean. Life onboard includes air conditioning, WIFI, digital television, and a spa.
Like a privileged gypsy in a decor of colorful silk curtains and bed covers, I barely manage to stow my suitcase under one of the two small, single beds. When our dutiful butler is at the door to attire us in Indian wraps for the photo souvenir, Jim (my husband) is too preoccupied with our downsizing from the sophisticated Taj Mahal hotel in New Delhi to notice the impressive ready-to-wear turban placed on his head. “This is not going to work,” he says after parking himself in the narrow gap between the beds, sweat smudging his red tikka down the bridge of his nose.
Like a Cruise on Train Tracks
Shortly after the train starts rolling, my attention is diverted to the open side of a dark hangar where gray and black shapeless forms move around. Shocked, I realize they are people. Did they leave the harsh countryside for the opportunities of the big city? Are they Dalits, the lowest of all castes? Reportedly, and despite the abolition of the caste system in 1950, and pressure from human rights organizations, Dalits are rejected, exploited, and victims of violence. They still make a living doing the filthiest jobs, such as clearing human excrement from train tracks.
Our first of seven days begins in the lounge of our private car of four suites, with an English breakfast in the convivial company of three other couples, including the Rajasthan Air Marshall, his wife, and his daughter. The Marshall’s knowledge of history is a fantastic privilege for travelers like us, who are interested in his country. The presence of this honorable guest also bestows upon us the service of an armed military guard. However, the Air Marshall dismisses him from the lounge every morning, visibly eager to enjoy personal time.
Food has been baffling at times. It has little to do with Western Indian food, and the international menu has its twists. Regardless of preference or sequence, servers queue up to ladle a mix of both menus on our plates. One day, the sauce for a bland meat dish appears with our dessert. Meals are prepared laboriously from scratch in the kitchen car, but the know-how in the dining room is lacking. I imagine the servers trying to figure out how to serve a confusing array of alien dishes. Lunches in the touristic buffets of hotels are more satisfying, although breakfast has become my most digestible meal.
India On My Mind
In this land of extremes, the colossal walls of forts built over hundreds of years baffle our understanding as they rise and stretch in the barren countryside. The numerous well-preserved palaces of the Rajput royal families we visit daily appear like humongous jewelry boxes filled with treasures. As for the natural world, our tiger-sighting tour would yield none—because of poachers, we were told. But we’d sway on a camel until we dismount for a memorable high tea in the desert.
At most of our daily destinations, we step onto the train station platform where women have been waiting for us, often with babies or young children in tow. They know when the Palace on Wheels comes to town. Is it their bright saris despite their hands matter-of-factly held out that gives them a dignified composure? We all feel awkward to see them ordered back so we can board a luxury coach.
Along the way, the unusual sight of crops interrupts the dry monotony of the desert landscape. Millet and bulgur are the only cereal grains growing in the sandy and saline desert.
We spend the evenings with our fellow travelers in the Jaipur lounge—each car named after a Rajput state—or in the bar lounge, pondering what we have seen, and discussing India’s challenges in bringing 1.21 billion people from 5,000 years of history, including nearly 90 years of colonial power, into the 21st century. At night, I often gaze out the window of our cabin. There is often nothing to see but the moonlight over the endless desert.
When the train rolls in the Thar Desert, we are in the world’s most populated arid region and the poorest. It occupies seventy percent of Rajasthan, and 60 million people live here. The eerie shadows of mud huts, one or two camels, a buffalo or an ox, and a few goats roam the isolated walled compounds along the tracks. En route to Jaisalmer, one night, I am not hallucinating when the bare landscape morphs into a field of military tanks: we are close to Pakistan, and the ongoing border conflict since its partition from India. That day, like the locals heading to a festival in the far, dunes away, we ride camels for tea in the desert, the tents reminiscent of Taj’s times. Then, out of ‘nowhere’ a young woman approaches me; we are both curious about each other.
On our last morning, en route to Agra, I observe one last mud hut and wonder if the child I see ambling freely in his quiet compound will be lured to city life. I wonder about that young woman too.
Note
Since our trip The Palace on Wheels was refurbished, in 2018. Another luxury train is the Maharaja Express which offers several routes.
Original article 2012 Buckettripper – new version 2014 The West Vancouver Beacon – Revised 2022 More articles about India: Shopping in India – The Taj Mahal
