Dreams on the Grand Divan by Maureen Barry

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It’s sticking your neck out in India, land of palaces sublime, to promote your revamped train tour as the Palace on Wheels. After all, anything on wheels is limited space-wise, and how royal can you feel when your loo is three foot by four?

But, to hand it to the Rajasthanis, they almost pull it off and my eight-day journey turned into a hugely entertaining mixture of the luxurious, the hilarious - and this being India - the oddly eccentric, as well.

After setting up as one of the Great Train Journeys of the World some years ago, the train then ran into teething troubles and closed down for refurbishment. After an opulent refit, new plumbing and a change to a more comfortable wide meter gauge, the train once more aspired to join the world’s great rail experiences.

The service operates from September to April, which is the best season for travel in Rajasthan. Days are hot and dry with temperatures ranging from 70-90 and evenings are refreshingly cooler.

At 11 o’clock on just such a balmy evening, our ivory one-kilometre-long serpent slithered out of Delhi station en route for breakfast in Jaipur and an eight-day journey through the heartland of Rajasthan.

The brochure boasts of merging the demands of the modern traveller with the style and grace of the magnificent past, which is a pretty accurate description. Centuries of fine craftsmanship are reflected in the restored carriages bearing the proud names of former Rajputana, land of desert forts and warrior kings. Rich veneered wood and fine fabrics, intimate lighting, glowing stained glass mirrors and soft piped music create a cocoon of sybarism.

In India, luxury and practicality don’t necessarily go hand in hand, but the Palace has got the plumbing sorted. The marble bathrooms boast hot power showers while the bedrooms are fitted with wardrobes and a table and two armchairs where you can sprawl while the countryside of the Rajput moghuls glides by like a never-ending movie set.

The 14 coaches cater for 100 guests and are named after former Rajput states, Kotah, Bikaner, Kishangarh, Udaipur, Jhalawar and Dolphur - every one has a royal crest and contrasting colours, the ochres and pink sandstones of the desert or emerald and ruby of princely Jaisalmer, the jewel in its crown.

Each coach has four coupes and its own little sitting room at the end, complete with a galley and two bearers, togged up in Rajput turbans and tasselled tunics.

The sleeping arrangements are unique to the Palace on Wheels and give it a most exotic appeal. While other great international trains still cling to bunk beds, the Palace has gone the whole hog and invented the Grand Divan, a vast bed of Kama Sutra proportions, where you can loll for hours suspended on a swaying magic carpet experience. Coupes with twin beds are also available but not half as much fun, and all compartments have an upper bunk which unfolds to take on extras.

At dinner time, the trot along the corridor to the central bar and restaurant is a fair one, especially if you’re in one of the coupes at the end. But the charm of this evening ramble are the convivial watering stops en route through the lounges of Jodhpur, Bharatpur, Jaipur and so on, which make for a jolly arrival at the dining table.

Service in the restaurant was amiably erratic, confirming the tone of mild eccentricity which gives the trip its verve. The menu was extensive, but separate orders didn’t seem to be an option. Impressively turbaned and jodhpured waiters performed a virtuoso act balancing great salvers of beef stroganoff or shepherds pie, fillet steak and talliatelle Alfredo. It was a bit of a wait for what I’d come for, the grand Moghul cuisine of Rajasthan, but worth it for entertainment value alone. Eventually, dish after dish of sublimely spiced specialities came dashing out of the kitchen like a dramatic tour de force.

The Palace on Wheels, with its panoramic tinted windows, looks for all the world like a tawny python sleeping in the sun. Appearances are deceptive however, as this monster is all eyes. The amber glass is one-way and impenetrable from the outside world. This gives you a unique and unfair viewpoint, as you become a fly-on-the-wall observer of the minutiae of Indian life.

Vignettes on the platform a few inches from your unseen eyes can be poignant, striking and unforgettable. An exhausted mother and her tattered family resting in transit, with eight offspring graded from the child at the breast to a teenage stripling, burdened with the household possessions on his puny shoulders. Railway workers praying silently before their meagre meal, coaxed from the heat of a charcoal brazier. A widow’s farewell to her son, pressing provisions into his hands before he gathered his sparse bundles and was swallowed up in the heaving humanity of the city bound train.

The train rolls smoothly along through the night, and during the day you can take a tailor-made excursion or slope off alone and dart down inviting alleyways, mooch around markets or bargain in bazaars.

At Bharatpur the ornithologists among us became delirious over the sighting of a rare Siberian crane in the renowned Koleado National Park, which boasts over 300 species of bird. Our safari outing at Ranthambore Game Park produced a tiger, padding haughtily just a few feet from our shaking lenses.

Lunches tended to be lavish, and took in the ravishing Lake Palace Hotel at Udaipur, the Rambagh Palace at Jaipur and the Umaid Bhawan Palace at Jodhpur. Lasting impressions are of stunning colour - in Rajasthan it engulfs you - from the dusty pink of Jaipur to Jodhpur’s cool blue-tinted labyrinths, the women’s clothes of electrifying brilliance against the desert monotone.

Did we have a priceless moment? Our cast of seeming thousands aloft camels, etched against an indigo and vermilion sunset on the sand dunes of Jaisalmer, like extras from a de Mille epic with the city’s jagged ochre citadel as backdrop.

If eight days of Palace touring have you in a state of sensation arrest then you can always catch the train up at any point and choose your own programme. Most people wouldn’t want to miss the experience of Agra and Fattepur Sikri.

Whether you’ve already backpacked in India or done it in some style, the Palace of Wheels is well, something totally different. Definitely up there with the great travel experiences of a lifetime.