Pink and Blue by Rail

by David Gourley

India, as all know, is a vast sub-continent and by no means did we go round all of it. Our travels were in the northwest, mainly in the State of Rajasthan with an add-on to Shimla, up in the Himalayas. It is still a huge area. We had a twofold reason for selecting this particular holiday. Firstly we had never had a holiday purely in India itself, though we had passed through it going to and from Nepal or Bhutan. Like Peter Sellers’ legendary doctor, we had been to Delhi and Darjeeling (“from New Delhi to Darjeeling / I have done my share of healing .... I remember how with one jab of my needle / In the Punjab”) but to little else. Secondly I hankered after a trip on the renowned Palace of Wheels, the luxury train (or so I thought) that takes one around Rajasthan. One of our most enjoyable holidays had been our trip on the luxury Pride of Africa train, run by Rovos Rail, between Cape Town and Victoria Falls. I fondly imagined that Palace on Wheels would be similar.

We flew to Delhi with BA. A pleasant surprise awaited us at the airport. We had upgraded to Premium Economy. All one gets for the extra money, which is not insubstantial, is extra legroom, which rather matters to me given I am over six foot. Stingy BA do not even throw in a glass of champagne (according to current advertising, Air New Zealand, by contrast, serve their Premium Economy passengers the Business Class food and wine). We were informed that – for the very first time – we were to have a further upgrade. So we ended up in Business Class.

We stayed for our first night in the splendid Imperial Hotel. In the frenetic life of the city, this is an oasis of calm, but the bustling street activity is there to be had as soon as one passes through its gates. We went for a stroll and, immediately outside, had to run the gauntlet of traders trying to interest us in their wares. It was all however very unthreatening. We found ourselves on a road named after Leo Tolstoy and wondered why a Russian novelist should be so honoured in India: there is a connection since he was a friend, albeit only through the medium of correspondence, of Mahatma Gandhi.

Our package included tours of New and Old Delhi, respectively before and after the Palace of Wheels trip. Previously we had only had time for a New Delhi tour though we went just over the boundary into Old, to visit the Gandhi Memorial. The tour took in the fine Government Buildings. These have some similarity with the Union Buildings in Pretoria – no coincidence since the British architect Herbert Baker was involved in building both. We then travelled out of the city, once more past the striking memorial, also to be seen on the way to and from the airport, to the Salt March, Gandhi’s non-violent protest about the British-imposed salt monopoly. Our destination was the Qutb Minar complex. The Qutb Minar itself is a huge tower, sadly no longer open to the public, but there are a number of other interesting sights, including the Iron Pillar, which is a mystery to scientists as it has not rusted in some 2000 years. It is said that if one can encircle the pillar with one’s hands whilst standing with one’s back turned, one’s wish will be fulfilled. Since there is now a barrier, we could not put this to the test.

For our train journey we were departing from Delhi Cantonment, entailing another traipse past the Salt March Memorial and out into the southern districts. I don’t know why the main train station isn’t used. Maybe it is because of the heartrending poverty that one is bound to see there though one does not entirely escape this in Cantonment. In fact when we first started serious travel, India was not really on my wish list because I feared I couldn’t cope with the poverty. However, as veteran Indian correspondent Mark Tully has observed, it is the poor themselves who have to “cope with” poverty. One cannot avoid it, however cocooned one might be in five-star luxury. Tibet excepted, the poverty is the worst I have seen. One is told by the authorities and by tour companies not to give money to beggars, but occasionally we disobeyed.

The visitor to India cannot, and indeed should not, avert his eyes from the poverty but this is not of course the sum total of the country. This is a beautiful country with enormous vitality among its people. At the other end of the scale India has the world’s largest middle class, on the basis that the population is around a billion and a tenth are middle-class. In recent years the economy has boomed as India takes its place among the Asian Tigers, and one must fervently hope that this benefits all, including the very poorest.

It was apparent straight away that Palace of Wheels was to be nothing like Rovos Rail. At Cape Town we had been given a glass of champagne as we boarded the train. Here there was a scruffy tent at the entrance with orange juice the only drink on offer; we declined it having observed someone wipe inside a glass with an ungloved hand. The train had something of a dog-eared look, with no feel of luxury, although the company’s website extols its virtues: it is “exquisite”, “exclusive”, “has luxurious cabins” and offers “almost everything that could comprise heaven on earth for seven days”. If only! It prides itself too on its personalized service with a Khidmatgar (personal attendant) assigned to every half-dozen or so passengers. Ours was a surly individual. Fortunately he was with us only for the first leg of the trip, to Jaipur. His replacement was better, but that is not lavishing praise on him.

The meals were a disappointment. We love Indian cuisine and had looked forward to poring over a menu and making our selection. But this was buffet food without a buffet, a succession of dishes brought, with no great panache, to one's table on a take it or leave it basis. It included Western as well as Indian dishes, not what we wanted. I am very partial to roast lamb but it’s not something I’m going to seek out in India. To be fair, much of the food was tasty and there were pleasant smells wafting out of the kitchen as one went by. On the Pride of Africa, Bruce the genial train manager was very hands-on, not thinking it at all beneath him to top up someone’s drink if he noticed their glass getting low. On the Palace of Wheels, two managers stood around looking important, but it was not apparent to me what value they were actually adding. A Belgian lady informed us that she would never travel on the Palace of Wheels again “even if it were for free”. But our disappointment did not stop us from enjoying India. With train travel mostly at night, there was plenty of time to see its sights and the excursions were usually good, with a VIP welcome, elephants et al, at the various stations.

Our first port of call was Jaipur, the Rajasthani capital. It is known as the Pink City, the buildings in the centre being of this colour, a custom dating back to the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1853, when they were painted in his honour. We started with a brief walkabout, which took us past the city’s most famous building, the Palace of Winds, which is basically a facade. Its original purpose was to allow the royal ladies to view everyday life in the street outside without being seen themselves. In photographs it looks serene and isolated, but it is in a busy street. Just opposite, we saw our first ever real-life snake charmer.

We were then taken a dozen or so miles out of the city to the magnificent hilltop fort of Amber. We ascended in traditional manner, in a howdah atop an elephant. Animal welfare groups have no issue about elephants being used for this purpose (they only carry people up the hill). They are, though, concerned that the animals are stabled in Jaipur rather than in Amber itself, since this involves a long and wearying trek at the beginning and end of each day. 

We returned to Jaipur. Leaving behind the hustle and bustle of its streets, we were taken to the peace and quiet of the Rambagh Palace Hotel, where we had a good buffet lunch. This is the one-time residence of the Maharajah of Jaipur. At the time of independence, there were, in addition to the areas ruled directly by the British, a number of princely states, a fair few of these being in Rajputana, as Rajasthan was then known. To entice their rulers into the new India, they were provided with “purses” i.e. regular subsidies by the State. In 1971, Indira Gandhi, not unreasonably it might be felt, decided this was not a good use of the state’s money in a country with such enormous poverty and the payments ceased. As a result a number of princes turned to tourism as their main source of revenue and former royal residences, such as the Rambagh Palace, became hotels.

Returning to the city in the afternoon, we first visited the City Palace, a huge complex. Then we crossed the road to the Jantar Mantar, or Observatory. I had not heard of this and surmised it might be a mildly interesting building. We were in for a surprise. It is not a building at all; rather, it is an amazing outdoor collection of architectural astronomical implements, the largest stone astronomical observatory in the world. There are fourteen major geometric devices whose uses include measurement of time, predicting eclipses, tracking stars in their orbits, and ascertaining the declinations of planets. The world’s largest sundial is here, telling the time to an accuracy of about two seconds. It is one of five such observatories built by Maharaja Jai Singh, the founder of Jaipur, another being located in Delhi, fairly close to our hotel.

The next leg of our journey took us to our furthest flung destination, Jaisalmer, located in the Thar Desert. One is here getting quite close to the Pakistani border. This was drawn across the former Raj in somewhat arbitrary manner, separating towns on either side from large areas of their natural hinterland, Jaisalmer being an example. Tourism in places like these tends to be affected by the relationship between the two Asian giants. At time of our visit these were on an upswing; as is often the case with supposed enemies, ordinary Indian and Pakistanis were finding that they rather liked each other if actually allowed to meet. One can only hope that the recent terrible bombings in Mumbai don’t foreshadow any serious renewal of tension between these two nuclear powers.

Jaisalmer is a city of great charm, with its amazing warren of medieval streets and distinctive local dwellings, the havelis. The main attraction is the Fort, which commands fine views of the surrounding area. Uniquely, people still live in the fort, around a quarter of the city’s population in fact. Breaking from our usual pattern of having dinner on the train and lunch elsewhere, we returned to the train for lunch, then headed out into the scenic desert. Here we were to go for a camel ride in the Sam Sand Dunes. I rather baulked at this. Emboldened by the fact that Paul Merton, in his recent TV series on India, has made a similar confession, I will own up to not liking animal rides (unless safely inside a howdah as on the previous day), being convinced that I am going to fall off. So I opted out of this adventure. Then, chastising myself for my wimpishness, I changed my mind and mounted my camel some few minutes after everyone else had departed. I ended up with a rather more challenging ride than anyone else, as the boy leading me took it into his head that he wanted to overtake the rest of the party, which we duly did, charging along at a rate of knots. The scenery was splendid, but I took little of it in as I was so focused on staying on the wretched animal. 
The evening was billed as one of cultural entertainment. Once again we were to be unimpressed with Palace on Wheels. After an indifferent buffet dinner in a modern hotel of no great character, we went outside into a courtyard. We were looking forward to a show with authentic Rajasthani dancers and singers. It started with a long talk about musical instruments which was not especially interesting but OK, I thought, if it was a prelude to good musical entertainment. Instead of this, a couple of English-speaking comedians appeared who went on and on and on and were excruciatingly unfunny. There was nothing else. It was like being promised an evening of English folk songs and country dances, and then being entertained, if that is the right word, by Jim Davidson.

During our overnight journey from Jaipur we had passed through the city of Jodhpur and this was now our next stop. If Jaipur is the pink city, this is the blue city, for reasons evident when we gazed down at it from the vantage point of Mehrangahr Fort, strikingly located on a hill above the city. From here the city, with its blue dwellings, looked beautiful, but we didn’t get the chance to view it at close quarters for, after our visit to the Fort, we were whisked off for lunch at the Umaid Bhawan Palace. The Fort, which is one of India’s largest, is magnificent and there is an eclectic collection of exhibits ranging from howdahs to royal cradles. We were shown round by a genial local guide, who looked imposing in a uniform that included the trousers to which the city gives its name.

We had, without realizing it, espied the Umaid Bhawan Palace from the Fort, a large building on the horizon which looked rather ugly and out of keeping with the city. Closer acquaintance did not improve it. This is another converted royal place constructed, a trifle optimistically it might be thought, over a 15 year period to 1943, when it must have been obvious to pretty well anyone but Churchill (usually blessed with marvellous foresight, but curiously myopic over India) that the Raj did not have long to go. Lunch was good but it struck me as a cavernous, rather soulless place.

Next port of call was the Ranthambore National Park. It was morning, but still dark, when we arrived and our local guide pointed out the planet Venus. This Park is packaged as the place where one can see tigers but a lot of visitors must go away disappointed since on most days, apparently, there are none to be seen. And in India such parks do not offer the huge variety of wildlife to be found in an African game park, where the visitor is unlikely to go away disappointed, even if no elephants are seen. We were in luck. A beautiful tigress presented herself and, quite unbothered by the presence of a number of jeeps, strolled through the forest as we drove alongside. It was almost as if she was putting on a show for us. Wonderful! But when we got back to the train, the Belgian lady was angry. Her group had noticed that other jeeps were all congregating some distance away and had urged their driver to join them. He had taken no notice so they hadn’t seen the tiger.

For a change we now had a long train journey by day so, for the first and last time, were able to enjoy a few hours of looking out at the Indian countryside. Our destination was Chittorgarh where, for the first and last time, we were to be stationary overnight, as the next day’s visit was to Udaipur. This city is served by the Indian rail network but, because there is a different gauge, the Palace on Wheels was unable to take us there. There is not a great deal in Chittorgarh itself to detain the visitor, other than the Fort with its impressive Tower of Victory. It has had a turbulent history, including the ‘Jauhar’ of 1303, when the women of the court, taking their lead from Queen Padmini, leapt into a huge fire rather than submit to conquering invaders, leaving the men to carry on the fight to the death.

We transferred to Udaipur by road. It was a fast road, so there was not really the chance to look close up at rural life in India. We were now at the southernmost point of our tour and here in southern Rajasthan there was at the time of our visit a serious drought. We had lunch in the historic Lake Palace, now a sumptuous hotel, so named because it is on a small island in the middle of Lake Pichola. In the classic photographs it is thus surrounded on all sides by water but much of the Lake had dried up, with grazing animals suggesting that this was not just for the short term. We were just about able, from our starting point near City Palace, still to do the journey by boat. We enjoyed a very good lunch in splendid surroundings, and wished we had the wherewithal to end right now our journey on the Palace on Wheels, and stay here for a few days. But back to the train we had to go, first touring the City Palace, the largest palace complex in Rajasthan, an amazing and beautiful warren of courtyards, pavilions, terraces, corridors, rooms and hanging gardens.

Our final full day on the train took us out of Rajasthan and on to Agra, which is in the State of Uttar Pradesh. There were two stops en route. First of these was a visit to the Keoladeo Ghana bird sanctuary near Bharatpur. This was a rewarding visit. We had an excellent guide whom we commended on his good knowledge of English. Clearly a man without pretensions, he volunteered that he only knew what was necessary for him to do his job as a guide in the sanctuary. We had been annoyed with ourselves for not bringing binoculars but, no problem, he straight away produced a pair, all part of the service.

We did the remainder of the journey to Agra by road. Heading away from the bird sanctuary, there was wildlife that we had no wish at all to see: at intervals along the road were dancing bears with their owners. There is a law against this practice but seemingly people can ignore it with impunity. This was just about the poorest looking area that we saw in India. Our second stop was at Fatehpur Sikri. This is an abandoned city which, for a brief period in the sixteenth century, was the capital of the Mughal Empire, the Brasilia of its day but a failed experiment. It is well preserved and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Agra is a bustling city with a population approaching 2m. It is of course known above all for the Taj Mahal. We had had a day trip here from Delhi on the first of our two previous visits to India. Sometimes a second visit can disappoint but the opposite was the case here. We were all the more captivated by its beauty. Clichés cannot be entirely avoided: it is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and it is at once very romantic and very tragic. Completed in 1653, it was built by the emperor, Shah Jahan as the final resting place for his beloved wife, Mumtaz. For the final years of his life the Emperor was imprisoned in Agra Fort by his own son, Aurangzeb. From there he could look across at his masterpiece.

We had lunch in Agra and a visit to the Fort, the city’s other main attraction. This too was our second visit and on the previous occasion we’d encountered monkeys with attitude. No sign of them this time, thankfully. We then boarded the train for the final leg of our journey, back to Delhi. Usually it is with feelings of sadness that we finish a trip, but we did not feel in the least bit sad as we got off the train the next morning. It had failed completely to find a place in our affections. We were looking forward to another night at the Imperial and thus to the luxury promised but certainly not delivered by the Palace on Wheels.

The trip was not completely over, for there was still our included tour of Old Delhi, complementing the Tour of New Delhi that we’d had on our first day. We first visited the Gandhi Memorial, which, as mentioned, we had also visited during our previous Delhi tour. Again it was a moving visit. Mahatma Gandhi was undoubtedly one of the great men of the 20th century. He was dedicated to the cause of independence from the British, to be achieved however not through violent struggle but through Satyagraha, or non-violent protest. This inspired later heroes of the last century, above all Martin Luther King. He also championed the cause of a single, united and secular India, a lost cause given the determination of Moslem leaders to create a separate state of Pakistan. It might also be remarked that his influence helped to ensure that nationalism in India, unlike in China or Vietnam, did not fall under the sway of communists. Sadly he only lived for a few months after India achieved independence: this man of peace and religious tolerance was felled by a bullet fired by a Hindu extremist. But his legacy lives on, the world’s largest democracy.

On our city tour of Delhi during our first visit to India, our guide had seemed somewhat embarrassed when we’d asked who a statue was of. It was a statue of Tilak, a militantly anti-British campaigner for independence. Not for him the Gandhian willingness, if his face was slapped, to present the other cheek for slapping! We saw no reason for embarrassment: one has to face historical facts as they were and the British did on occasions behave shamefully in India. But one must be careful too not to judge the past by today’s standards. Satyagraha worked because the British in India were at least half-decent; it would never have worked against a Hitler, a Stalin or a Pol Pot.

This same guide made a point, when mentioning once or twice Mumbai, of translating it for us: “or, as you say in English, Bombay”. But, as in this article, we too call it Mumbai. I question though whether we should. It’s understandable if the Indians want to Indianize the names of their cities but do we really have to follow suit? We do not talk about going to Venezia, Firenze or Roma and the Italians clearly don’t mind. I’m sure Indians would be equally happy if we carried on talking about Bombay instead of Mumbai, Madras instead of Chennai, Calcutta instead of Kolkata. I understand that many of the locals still call their city Bombay.

Other attractions visited in Old Delhi were the Red Fort and the huge Jama Masjid, the city’s principal mosque. When India and Pakistan went their separate ways, a lot of blood was spilt with huge transfers of population in either direction. But many Moslems remained in India, making it one of the largest Moslem countries in the world. Intercommunal strife is hardly unknown in India but by and large the different communities rub along fairly well and all came together to mourn the victims of the Mumbai bombings. Because of the religious sensitivities, one is most unlikely to find either beef or pork on restaurant menus. If it’s meat that one wants, it will invariably be lamb or chicken. India may be the most vegetarian-friendly of all countries. Even I, unreconstructed carnivore that I am, could get by, for a while at least, on the delicious vegetable curries.

We were not finished with the railways yet. As an add-on we continued to Shimla for three nights, returning to the Imperial for our final night in India. Located nearly 7000 feet above sea level in the Himalayas, Shimla, or Simla as it was then known, was the summer capital of the Raj. It is said that it was the real power centre of the Raj, since summer could stretch to eight months. To get there we travelled on the celebrated toy train. This is an amazing feat of Victorian engineering. This narrow gauge (2’ 6”) railway ascends over 4½ thousand feet during its journey of 60 odd miles, passing through 103 tunnels and across an astonishing 864 bridges.

We had on a previous visit seen, but not travelled on, another celebrated toy railway, the Darjeeling Himalaya. Shimla is, I would say, the greater engineering achievement. The Darjeeling line closely follows the main road. We had in fact driven alongside it for virtually its entire route, from Darjeeling itself down to Siliguri in the Bengal Plains, where we turned right for Nepal. The Shimla line by contrast takes it own route through the mountains. We reached it by way of an ordinary train which took us from Delhi to the southern terminus, Kalka. I had had one worry about the toy train. I will confide, within the four walls of Visa, that I need to relieve myself somewhat more frequently than the average person. I had read in a rather odd guidebook that there no toilets on the train. How was I going to manage for a five hour journey (which turned out to be closer to six)? I was not much taken with the guidebook’s suggestion that one could hunt for convenient bushes at intermediate stations. I had no confidence at all that the train would in such circumstances wait for me. So I was delighted, when I boarded, immediately to spot a toilet. In fact there were two in our carriage.

The journey was through some of the most breathtaking scenery anywhere and we hugely enjoyed it. Admittedly towards the very end it did get a bit boring as we were about an hour late getting into Shimla and it was by now dark and there were long stops at stations on the approaches to the town. Shimla is very much associated with British power in India but, if our trip is anything to go by, tourism nowadays is almost entirely domestic. In fact we didn’t see any white faces on the train journey. This was fine by us: India might be exotic but for us it never feels foreign, for the ties between our two countries are so strong. However when, just once, we espied a white couple in Shimla, who turned out to be from Solihull, the four of us, in very unBritish fashion, made a beeline for each other, just to say hello and compare experiences.

All was commotion when we finally made it into Shimla but amidst the seething mass of humanity a chap from our hotel, the nearby Cecil, found us straight away and transferred us there. This is a historic hotel, part of the Oberoi chain, and we had a great stay, always eating well and making use of its leisure facilities. We had an excellent check-in but at first were disappointed when we were led to our room as it was on the ground floor and there are several storeys. Disappointment didn’t last once we got inside, for the hotel is build on a ridge and we had one of our most spectacular views ever from a hotel room. Security in India was not much of a concern at the time of our visit (2005) so it was with sadness that I read on the hotel’s website that “in light of the recent incident in Mumbai, the security at the Oberoi Cecil, Shimla, has been intensified. Amongst the measures, strength of security personnel in and around the hotel has been increased and periphery patrolling has been enhanced”. The Cecil’s sister hotel in Mumbai was targeted in the devastating terrorist attack in that city and has yet to reopen.

These few days in Shimla were, in the main, spent chilling out. We did just one excursion away from base, which took us a few miles out of town to Kufri, still higher up and offering stunning views of the Himalayas, including into Tibet. We had lunch at the Wildflower hotel, also part of the Oberoi chain. It is more expensive to stay there, but I would not myself consider the extra outlay to be worthwhile. It is gloriously located, true, and we ourselves enjoyed a good al fresco lunch amidst the scenic splendour of its Himalayan surrounds, yet it felt a bit soulless, maybe because there were few guests at that time, and one is rather marooned since it is in a standalone location high in the hills whereas we had the town on our doorstep.

Otherwise we enjoyed ourselves exploring Shimla. The centre, around The Mall with its panoramic views and Christ Church, still has the feel of the Home Counties, for all that the days of the Raj are long gone and there are few British visitors. We attended a service at Christ Church. It was in Hindi but recognizably similar to a C of E service back home. For an Indian city, Shimla is easy on the conscience: we saw just one beggar. Indira Gandhi is something of a local heroine and there is a statue of her on The Mall. Under her auspices the separate State of Himachal Pradesh was established, with Shimla as its capital. The State also includes Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama’s place of exile, but unfortunately going there in the limited time available was a non-starter. It was formerly part of the Punjab which in bygone days covered a huge area of the Raj. Now much of it, including the one-time capital, Lahore, is in Pakistan and the residual Indian state is small in terms of size, if not importance, having spun off not only Himachal Pradesh but also Haryana.

First published in VISA issues 84-85 (Apr-Jun 2009)