The Deccan Odyssey, western India by train

India's railways are one of the wonders of the country. The network, begun under British rule in the 1850s, now carries millions of passengers every day, and for many travellers a journey on an ordinary Indian train, with its tea sellers, crowded platforms and changing views, is one of the most memorable parts of a visit. But long distances on ordinary trains can be wearing, and for those who want to see the country by rail in comfort, India has a small number of luxury trains, designed to recall the private trains of the old princely states.

The Deccan Odyssey is one of them. It takes its name from the Deccan, the great plateau that covers much of southern and central India, though its routes range more widely across the west and north of the country.

A hotel on rails

The train is a moving hotel. Its passengers live on board for the length of the journey, in cabins with their own bathrooms, and eat in dining cars, with a bar and a lounge to sit in as the country passes. Most of the travelling is done at night, so that each morning the train has arrived somewhere new, and the day is spent on excursions to the sights before returning to the train in the evening. It is a way of covering long distances without the effort of packing and unpacking or long days on the road.

Mumbai to Rajasthan

The journeys usually start or end in Mumbai, India's largest city and commercial capital, on its island in the Arabian Sea. Its great Victorian buildings, including the extravagant Gothic railway terminus now called Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are among the finest in the country, and the Gateway of India, on the waterfront, was built to commemorate the visit of King George V in 1911.

North of Mumbai lies Gujarat, and Vadodara, once the capital of a wealthy princely state, whose rulers built the vast Laxmi Vilas Palace, said to be several times the size of Buckingham Palace. Nearby are the ruins of Champaner-Pavagadh, another UNESCO site, with mosques and fortifications from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

From there the route turns to Rajasthan, the land of the Rajput princes. Udaipur, the city of lakes, has its white City Palace on the shore of Lake Pichola and the Lake Palace hotel floating on the water. Jodhpur, the blue city, lies beneath the great Mehrangarh Fort, which rises from a sheer outcrop of rock above the indigo-painted houses of the old town. Jaipur, the pink city, has its Palace of the Winds and the hilltop Amber Fort.

Agra and the tigers

The journeys continue to Agra, for the Taj Mahal, the white marble tomb that the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built for his wife Mumtaz Mahal in the seventeenth century, and the great red sandstone Agra Fort. And they visit Ranthambore National Park, in eastern Rajasthan, one of the best places in India to see tigers in the wild. Its forests are scattered with the ruins of a great hilltop fort, lakes and old pavilions, and tigers are sometimes seen walking among them.

India's first luxury tourist train, the Palace on Wheels, began running in 1982, using carriages modelled on the private saloons of the maharajas, and its success led to others, the Deccan Odyssey among them. The Indian railways had a long history of such carriages: in the days of the princely states, many maharajas kept their own saloons, with bedrooms, dining rooms and bathrooms, which were attached to scheduled trains when they travelled. The luxury trains revive that idea for anyone with the fare.

The tours

Just You's India in Colour: the Deccan Odyssey, fourteen nights for solo travellers, combines time in Delhi and the hill station of Shimla with a rail journey taking in Mumbai, Vadodara, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Agra and Ranthambore.

Travelsphere's Jewels of India & the Deccan Odyssey, thirteen nights, starts in Delhi and visits Amritsar, home of the Golden Temple, before the train journey through Mumbai, Vadodara, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Agra and Ranthambore.

The luxury trains run in the cooler, drier months, from roughly October to March. That is the best season for travel in northern and western India in any case, after the monsoon and before the fierce heat of April and May. The mornings in Rajasthan can be surprisingly cold in December and January, which is a good excuse for the tea that arrives with them.