Palace on Wheels

Once the Panorama meeting was set in India, I immediately e-mailed the wife of the host . We have all traveled together before to other Panorama conferences, so we have a little "Panorama Spouses Club". Anyway, I asked Neeta Puri where we would be flying into and what we should not miss while there. The conference would be held in Delhi, which is in Northern India. The conference would only last three days. We knew if we were traveling that far we would 

want to stay longer and see some of the country.

It was then that I learned of the "Golden Triangle" which is an area beginning in Delhi, then on to Jaipur and ending in Agra. It covers most of the Ragasthan area of India.

At that point we knew of two other couples that were going for sure. One couple from London and the other from Canada. The English couple had a travel agent design them a trip covering Rajasthan. They would have a car, driver and tour guide traveling with them. 

They would stay at different hotels along the way. 

The couple from Canada was going to so basically the same trip, but by train. The wife, Jean, is actually a travel agent. They had friends who had done the Palace on Wheels (POW) train trip through the area. So basically it's like being on a cruise ship stopping at different ports, except you are on a train. It is a long way between some of the stops. By car you would be driving hours from place to place, but on the train, you could sleep while the train traveled at night.

Craig and I discussed and decided to join the Forrests on the Palace on Wheels.

One thing Neeta did say was that we had to stay at the Oberoi hotel in Agra, because each room had a view of the Taj Mahal. The Palace on Wheels actually will let you get off the train and stay in a hotel. They provide all transportation. When we tried to book the Oberoi in Agra, they said they had a two night minimum, so Jean, the travel agent, began working and found that there was another Oberoi on our route in Jaipur. So we were able to stay the first and last night in these lovely hotels. We were on the train the five nights in the middle. 

The Palace on Wheels departs from Delhi. The first day they would tour Delhi. We knew that we would be in Delhi for the conference, so we skipped the POW tour of Delhi and took an early train on the Jaipur so we could enjoy the hotel. 

Our first day of touring in Jaipur, the POW provided us with a driver and a tour guide. He took us all over Jaipur. (See previous post)  Later that day we met up with the train and began our tour on the Palace on Wheels.

 This was a family of pigs in the parking lot of the train station. Pigs roam free everywhere!

 This is our cabin. We had twin beds and our own bathroom with a shower. There were four cabins in 

our train car. We were in the Jaipur car.

 This is the bar car and large living area.

 This is one of the two dining cars.

They even had a Spa! Yes, I had a massage on a moving train!

Each car has four cabins, like I said, and each car has two butlers that attend to you. You had a little button you could push if you needed them! Ours were both named Raj. Raj and Raj.

Each morning we met in our little common living area for breakfast. The Raj's would take turns cooking and serving. We fell in love with both of them.

 Here is Raj2 serving us breakfast. The guy in the pink was from Liverpool and that's Casey Forrest in the purple. There was also a German couple, but they never ate breakfast.

 They made these sandwiches for us every morning. They were delicious. It was a mixture of tomatoes, onions, peppers, coriander and cheese or cream cheese, we weren't really sure, served on toasted bread. We asked others and no one else's butlers made these for them! We were lucky to have the two Rajs.

Most days I had the muesli. It was basically oats and fruit that was dry. Then they would pour hot milk over it…yum!

Here is a photo of Raj and Raj outside the train. Each day when we arrived at a station, they would escort us to our bus. We were in the Blue Group which was made up of about 27 people from all over the world. We really bonded. We laughed a lot and said that the Blue Group was the best!

When we would arrive back at the station, Raj and Raj would meet us at the bus. They would take our packages and bags and carry them back to the train for us. The service here in India in amazing. 

 Raj and Raj

Here is Raj1 escorting Craig to the bus.

Thursday night was our first night on the train. We got settled and had dinner at the 7:00 seating. Each night they has a Western offering and an Indian offering. You didn't choose, you got it all! The servers came around in white gloves serving the food. All of the food was delicious. 

I have not had a bad meal since we arrived in India.

While we are at dinner Raj and Raj turn down our beds…

So that is the story of the Palace on Wheels. First stop for us was Ranthambore National Park on Friday. We were going to try to see a tiger!