A daily travel log of our week-long train trip through the
state of Rajasthan in India on the “Palace on Wheels.”

Day 1. Wednesday March 10 – New Delhi

My mother tried to teach me that if you cannot say anything nice about a person or place, one should not say anything at all. Consequently there will be no entry for the city of New Delhi. Actually I should make a follow-up note to my last journal entry on South Africa. I found the solution to South Africa’s entire problems and it only costs $25 billion. Buy everyone in South Africa (50 million people) a round trip air ticket to New Delhi (about $500) and make them spend 24 hours touring New Delhi’s neighborhoods. You see, my observations on squalor in Cape Town townships suffered from the fact that I had not seen India yet. Squalor, it turns out, is a relative term. I saw a shantytown in New Delhi that makes the one I saw in Cape Town look like Mercer Island in comparison. Once everyone in South Africa sees just how low the human condition can get, they will get their act together real fast. All the conflicts between white, black, and mixed-race would magically disappear as they realize what is at stake and fix their country singing Cumbaya hand-in-hand. As I mentioned before, South Africa’s per capita GDP is around $3,300 and the African continent as a whole is even lower at $665. India, with its one billion people, crawls along at less than $500 per person!

Day 2. Thursday March 11 – Jaipur.

Most of this trip is through the Indian state of Rajasthan, so starting in its capital of Jaipur seems appropriate. The train itself is beautifully appointed with capacity for around 80 passengers and it is full. We will be spending our time later in the southern India city of Bangalore so we figured this train ride would be a good introduction to the north of India. Beautiful train, wonderful, attentive service, great destinations, helpful guides; we couldn’t ask for anything more, right? There is only one problem. I absolutely loathe tours. It’s genetic and I can’t help it. Put me in a tour group with an efficient leader who wants to head north with a gaggle of tourists and every instinct in my body screams “head south – fast”.

Despite this, we, in comparison to the others on this train, are happy campers. As you would expect, we didn’t sleep very well during the first night on the train and we found this condition true for everybody else on the train. For some reason, the operators scheduled this first day in Jaipur extremely full, leaving the train at 9 am and dragging everyone around in the hot sun through forts, elephant rides, and “special” shopping opportunities all day until 6:30 pm. Predictably, some people wanted more shopping, some people wanted less shopping and everyone had had enough of the constant barrage of Indian hawkers and beggars. By the end of the day the peasants were revolting and the poor tour leaders were in full retreat. Later they were no where to be seen and I imagine the bar car had a very busy night. Overall the tour leaders do an outstanding job, though, and go out of their way to take care of us.

Day 3. Friday March 12 – Jaisalmer.

After another sleepless night trying to ride the bucking bronco that is the Indian railway, we awoke in the desert that lies along the borders of India and Pakistan with a view of a dozen Russian T-72 tanks manned by Indian soldiers. As you know, India and Pakistan have fought many a war and relations between the two over the last several years have not been good, but lately have turned better. Just yesterday, the Indian national cricket team landed in Pakistan for the start of a goodwill tour of matches between the two countries. Cricket is like a religion in India and the two nations have not played a match against each other in 14 years so you can imagine a bit of tension surrounding the tour. I will keep an eye out on the horizon and look for the tanks to tell me who won. I figure if I see Pakistani tanks heading southeast then India won. If I see Indian tanks heading northwest then Pakistan won.

Due to a lack of a good night’s sleep for several days, I decided to rest today rather than opt for the schedule of see a fort, have a very “special” shopping opportunity, and ride a ________ (in today’s instance – a camel). The excitement of the day was taking the girls into town by hiring a tuk-tuk (a three wheeled motorized scooter, so named for the sound made by its two-cycle engine) to look for an internet source. It was very much like a Disney World ride; a cross between Mr. Toad’s wild ride and “IndiaLand” with the tuk-tuk weaving madly among bulls, beggars, and Brahmins through narrow alleys.

One interesting aspect of the train ride is the wealth of choices – you can have anything you want as long is it is Indian. One channel of Indian television, one brand of Indian vodka, Indian beer, and Indian wine (no I am not a lush, *hic*). A remarkable exception was experienced today when we asked our cabin steward to try and secure some apples. He returned from a trip into the local open fruit market with a bag of bright red delicious apples. Upon looking at them we laughed as we saw the label, familiar from our stores at home and here in the middle of a remote Indian desert – “Washington apples”.

Day 4. Saturday March 13 – Jodhpur.

We get a new tour guide for each city we visit (these are separate from the tour leaders who are Palace on Wheels employees and are excellent). I think Hindus believe in reincarnation because they see recurring patterns of personalities in their tour guides. Some must be reincarnated from the cowboys that rode the long cattle drives through the American West. Most seem to have come back from their previous lives in the leadership of the Third Reich. Today, however, I was treated to a guide who was the perfect combination of intelligence, knowledge, and humor that actually had me, for the first time in my life, enjoying a tour. We went through the 17th century Mehrangarh Fort, built on a high hill in the middle of town. From the top you get a great view of why Jodhpur. is called the “blue city” as many of walls in the town are washed blue. Through Hari Singh’s expert guidance, many of the fragments of Indian history, philosophy, and culture in my mind finally started to come together to form an integrated picture of what this fascinating country is about.

Most of the day for Indians was spent in front of any available television to watch the cricket match with Pakistan. News coverage lately has been exclusively focusing non-stop on this sporting event. Last night’s TV news led off with four stories about the match, the players, the players’ girlfriends, and an analysis of the last match between India and Pakistan 14 years ago. The fifth story was “Oh yeah, by the way there was a terrorist bombing in Madrid that killed some people, but who cares? Back to the cricket match!”

Day 5. Sunday March 14 – Rhanthambhor National Park.

It’s good to be da king. This adage was driven home for us as last night a senior official from the Indian National Railways and his wife joined our train car in the empty cabin next to ours. Since the Palace on Wheels is a joint venture of the Indian Railways and the state of Rajasthan, you can expect he would get some attention. The previous day I had noticed the crew testing the cabin buzzers in this train car that one uses to call the cabin steward and I wondered why. I discovered why after this couple joined as the buzzers soon got quite a workout. At dinner last night, the stewards brought in a big festive cake and everyone thought it was someone’s birthday, but, no, it was just a gesture of goodwill for this official. Even better, when we arrived at Rhanthambhor National Park station this morning at 6:00 am there were a least a dozen people there to meet this official before sunrise and a beautifully dressed woman in a sari came on board to bring several bouquets of fresh flowers to the cabin for the official’s wife. They were soon whisked off to a private tour of the National Park. The rest of us settled for safaris led by recycled cowpokes and Germans.

After the safari we visited the ancient fort of Chittaurgarh. Three times in the history of this 13.8 square kilometer fort, it has fallen to attackers and each time after a long siege the men charged out of the fort in one final suicidal attack while the women stayed back in the fort and committed Johar. In Johar, the women (13,000 of them in the 1535 siege) throw themselves onto a burning funeral pyre to conserve their honor and out of solidarity with their husbands’ fates. The husbands in the tour group, upon hearing this romantic tale, turned to their wives with an expectant gleam in their eyes and wanted to hear similar commitment and all the wives promptly told their husbands to “go stuff it.”

Day 6. Monday March 15 – Udaipur.

I imagine it is very difficult to keep 80+ jet-lagged people happy on a cramped train complicated by the fact that the guests are from different countries and cultures and in a very foreign land. The staff of the Palace on Wheels try very hard and do their best to give everyone a good experience. On the bus ride to the beautiful Lake Palace in Udaipur today the tour leader was very proud to recite the history and development of the train and listed all the famous people that had experienced the Palace on Wheels. After telling the story of how Mick Jagger had once sung in the bar car, one wry Brit quipped, “I’d wager he sang ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction!’”.

Day 7. Tuesday March 16 – Taj Mahal.

This literal wonder of the world was completed in 1653 by the local ruler as a mausoleum for his departed wife. She had died in childbirth at 39 after bearing him 14 children. It's reputation is well deserved as it is breathtakingly beautiful. Pictures don't do it justice because they cannot show the exquisite level of detail applied throughout. The Taj Mahal was completed over 22 years absorbing the careers of thousands of talented craftsmen.

All the husbands on the tour, upon hearing the story of the Taj Mahal, now realized the scale of financial commitment that was required to inspire Indian women to either bear 14 children or commit Johar for their husbands. We all looked at our wives, now with an expectant gleam in their eyes, and told them to “go stuff it.”

Day 8. Wednesday March 17 – New Delhi.

Again, no entry for the city of New Delhi.

But we did come to an end of a wonderful week’s introduction to a very foreign country. I highly recommend the Palace on Wheels to anyone wanting a quick trip to India. This country is so big and so complex with so many different cultures, languages, and geographies that no one week trip can give it justice. But this quick tour of Rajasthan and the Taj Mahal is a great “survey course” on India with fine accommodations and a helpful, attentive staff that does an outstanding job. I'm not sure that most Westerners will be prepared for the level of poverty in India they will witness. One's senses are assaulted by things foul as well as enchanted by things fair.

On to Bangalore!!