First-Class Passage Through India

"It's as tight as being in a sailboat, only it's not as well-designed," said my husband as we banged elbows. Still, our turbaned porters, Rajesh and Raibari, were beyond good -- charming, solicitous and efficient in settling us in, fixing broken bits, showing us around and describing the services. We managed to unpack, and we got used to the space. And later, dinner as we chugged westward was a cascade of dishes, both Indian and continental.

Maharajah for a Day

We awoke in Jaipur, the "Pink City," founded in 1727, and after breakfast (alas, instant coffee) in our car's "saloon," we were welcomed at the buses by elephants and more garlands and tika spots. Divided into manageable loads of 25 or so each, we zipped around the city in staggered timing so that our "green" group arrived at a palace as the "yellow" group was leaving, and the "blue" group pulled up as we pulled out. The mob scene I had feared never materialized.

Traffic was terrifying, as in all of India. "We shall all cross the street together," the guide warned -- or die separately, he might have added. Snake charmers milked us of rupees to allow photographs. At the Amber Fort gate, we boarded elephants, two by two, and jostled in a pachydermic traffic jam up a long slope into the main courtyard. Marveling at the elaborate decorations in the City Palace Museum, where the former royal family still lives, we glimpsed the maharajah himself, looking like an unassuming portly businessman trying to pass unnoticed through a courtyard.

We lunched buffet-style under chandeliers in the grand old Rambagh Taj Palace Hotel, then visited the Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century garden of huge sandstone sundials and other astronomical devices used in that horoscope-mad era to pinpoint times of births and schedule important occasions. After a shopping stop for jewelry, we had dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer, again about 20 varied dishes. But all liquor was extra. That seemed chintzy for $350 a day.

Rather to our surprise, the day's efficiency marked the whole week, a pleasant contrast to most everything else in India. But after running virtually the same trip nearly every Wednesday since 1982, September through April, the train's staff of 70 should have the logistics covered like a pashmina shawl, and they do. Arrivals, departures and all events, including shopping and mealtimes, occurred as scheduled on the glossy brochure.

After a very rough night, rocking and rolling on a roadbed torn up by either the shifting desert sands or troop trains carrying the thousands of soldiers, trucks, tanks and missiles we saw here, near the Pakistan border, we reached Jaisalmer. Rajesh and Raibari had stuffed newspaper into the cracks around the doors to keep out at least some of the dust of the huge Amber City and its Golden Fort of yellow sandstone. The ramparts fluttered with the laundry of many people, and the lovely narrow streets were narrowed further by camels, hogs, cows and dogs, as well as Internet cafe signs and every kind of tourist doodad. There were beautiful havelis, stone-carved houses; a mysterious Jain temple of wide-eyed statues; and ranks of writers-for-hire with ancient typewriters waiting to help the illiterate, for a fee.

Later, in the Sam Sand Dunes of the Desert National Park, we boarded camels for a half-hour ride over the dunes and into the sunset. My beast's stirrups were too short, forcing my rear into the saddle back, and the urchin leading us insisted on galloping, so I was raw and sore. Why did no one else have this problem? The subsequent dress-up evening at a hotel for a dance and music event was less fun than it otherwise might have been.

On to the Taj

We had a much smoother night en route to Jodhpur, the "Blue City," painted to help cool the 120-degree summers. Mehrangarh Fort featured a wall of what we were told were 17th-century handprints of women who killed themselves rather than be taken prisoner. At a rug-making operation, I survived a high-pressure sales pitch on lovely carpets. Others didn't, and I was weakening.

In Ranthambore, we awoke at 5:30 and were bundled into open-air bus-style trucks and wrapped in blankets for a cold, three-hour fogbound and very jouncy search for tigers. Painful! A former maharajah's hunting estate is now home to 40 tigers, all very well hidden while we careened through their beautiful forest. "We saw two yesterday right here . . . three right there . . . ," the guide insisted. Ah well. Onward to the Chittaurgarh Fort, supposedly the largest in Asia, where we climbed a nine-story tower for a spectacular view and fractured conversations with some local teenagers.

We had a long drive on the bus to Udaipur, the "Lake City," where we lunched at the fabled Taj Lake Palace in the middle of Lake Pichola; it was the best food of the trip. And we got the boat ride; last year tourists had to walk out to it because a weak monsoon left the palace high and dry. Now we waved off the garland-and-tika girls, very blase, and sat through the shopkeepers' razzle-dazzle sales pitches. Our group was buying, however, and the bus resounded with show and tell.

The next morning we had another early start, this time to shiver in a bicycle rickshaw ride through a Bharatpur bird sanctuary, another former royal hunting preserve. We saw flocks of owls, ducks, spoonbills, cranes, egrets and partridges as well as jackals and the moose-like sambars, but most of the 350-plus resident species were napping in the scenery. Then it was on to the underrated Fatehpur Sikri, built in 1570 and abandoned in 1585, a red sandstone palace fort of latticework and hushed beauty.

At Agra and the Taj Mahal, I was prepared to be disappointed after all the hype. I was not. It is spectacular and utterly lovely. As Mary McCarthy said about Venice, it is futile to think one will have an original thought about something so thoroughly criticized already, so it's best not to try. We wandered at will for a couple of glorious hours. Later, the visiting president of Nepal shut down Agra's fabled Red Fort to lower-caste visitors, so we couldn't get in.