Deccan Odyssey - Indian Odyssey

Delhi, India’s capital, is a compelling mix of the ancient and modern. It holds the vestiges of at least seven great centres, with crumbling Afghan mausolea adorning traffic roundabouts; millennia-old fort walls stand next to eight-lane expressways; and Sufi shrines the huddle beside concrete flyovers.

More impressive still is the fact that so many cultural transmissions from Delhi’s past eras endure. Five-star hotels host recitals by ghazal singers, sarod players and kathak dancers whose arts have been painstakingly preserved since the days of the Mughals. Echoes of the British Raj abound, too, from the 1930s elegance of the Imperial Hotel to the uniforms of the sentries strutting down Raj Path.

The most evocative place to get one’s bearings has to be the Jama Masjid, the magnificent sandstone and white-marble ‘Friday Mosque’ constructed by Emperor Shah Jahan in Old Delhi. Climb one of its minarets for a matchless view over the surrounding roofscape to the ramparts of the Red Fort, where the Mughals held court in a hidden world of cusp-arched pavilions and pillared audience halls. You may want to make the most of the city’s clean, efficient metro to travel across town to the National Museum, with its priceless collection of antiquities, or go onto Delhi’s southern fringes, where the exquisitely carved Qutub Minar has dominated the skyline since 1202 AD.

You’ll be pampered by porters and the smiling staff of the Deccan Odyssey train from the moment of your arrival. Once checked in, guests are treated to a ‘Welcome Aboard’ drink in the restaurant car and shown to their luxury cabins. Settle in and enjoy dinner onboard as the train makes its way out of Delhi.

Ranthambore National Park was created in the 1970s to spearhead 'The Save the Tiger Project' and remains a shining example of conservation. As a result of this and several subsequent National Parks, India's Tiger population in the wild has grown from under 1000 in 1970 to over 4,500 today.   

The park lies on the margins of the Aravalli range of hills amid a tract of dry deciduous forests and grassland and offers the perfect terrain for these magnificent animals. Close to the park entrance sits a long flight of stone steps that winds up to the ramparts of a medieval fort, affording fine views over the reserve and its much-photographed lake. On your search for the Tiger, you will also get to see several other animals, including Sambar deer, Chital, Hyena and wild Boar and the elusive Nilgai, a blue-hued cow.  Around eighty Tigers currently survive in reserve, and your chances of spotting one here are better than average.

Arriving at Agra Station, you'll disembark for a tour of the city in the company of a local specialist guide. The tour will start with the Taj Mahal, the Jewel of India, and one of the world's great architectural wonders.  Among the first to be awarded UNESCO World Heritage status, the mausoleum was built in memory of Mumtaz Mahal, the beloved wife of Emperor Shah Jahan, in 1632. Crafted entirely of white marble and decorated in elaborate geometric forms, screens cut out of solid marble and delicate pietre dure inlay work showcasing elaborate plants, flowers and fruit, so admired by the Empress, the Taj Mahal is so perfect in its geometry and artistically accomplished that it took 22 years and over 20,000 craftsmen to complete.

Jaipur is a swirl of life and colour, and its numerous monuments and markets provide the focus for the day. You’ll visit the famous City Palace complex, which includes the much photographed ‘Hawa Mahal’, or ‘Palace of Winds’, a five-storey façade of elaborately screened windows from where the women of the royal household used to watch processions in the streets below.

The Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, once spent a dreamy sojourn in one of the summer palaces in Udaipur, and it is said he was so taken with the beauty of the architecture that he used it as a blueprint for the Taj Mahal. Spread around the shores of shimmering Lake Pichola; the city remains an undeniably romantic spectacle, its ghats (sacred steps), whitewashed havelis and temple towers overlooked by the pale-ochre walls and domes of the exquisite City Palace.

Aside from the views over the water, the highlight for most is the palace interiors, where treasures from the royal collection are displayed amid a backdrop of ornate Rajput murals, mirrorwork and mosaics.

Champaner succeeded Ahmedabad as the seat of the local sultans in the 16th century before Akbar swept through to annex Gujarat for the Mughals. Inscribed with exquisite calligraphy and elaborate, Hindu-inflected motifs, its ruined mosques, palaces, fortified gateways and tombs are scattered over 4 miles of scrubland – now classed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Much of the archaeological park, which welcomes only a handful of foreign tourists each year, remains unexcavated. Above it looms the sandstone escarpments of jungle-covered Pavagadh mountain, on whose summit a whitewashed Kali temple affords a stupendous view of the surrounding plains. A flight of stone steps winds to the top – a lung-stretching hour’s climb – or you could join the pilgrims and daytrippers on the popular cable car ride.

Chiselled from a long, steep-sided outcrop of basalt on the northern edge of the Deccan Plateau, the Ellora Caves date from a five-hundred-year period beginning midway through the sixth century AD, when Buddhism was being supplanted by Brahmanical Hinduism as the region’s principal religion. The majority served as temples and monasteries, and were richly painted in their heyday. You’ll get to see all of the highlights on your tour, which culminates with a visit to the magnificent Kailash Temple, Cave 16 – Ellora’s pièce de résistance. The edifice resembles a free-standing structure, but like all the other monuments here was in fact sculpted from solid rock – a process that took over a hundred years to complete. The result – best viewed from the cliff behind – will take your breath away.

Mumbai has been India’s busiest port and industrial centre since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1969. As famous today for its traffic jams as its record-breaking movie industry, the Maharashtrian capital tends not to feature high up most visitors’ ‘must see’ list, but as a point of arrival has a lot to recommend it.

Before the last British troops garrisoned in the country slow-marched past it to board their ships back to Blighty in 1947, the Gateway of India – a huge triumphal arch in the colonial Indo-Saracenic style – was the first landmark most new arrivals from Britain set eyes on. The second was the famous Taj Mahal Hotel beside it. Both still stand tall on the waterfront, as emblematic of the city today as they were in Victorian times.

Still, more impressive monuments of the empire dominate the Kala Godha and Fort districts beyond the Gateway, among them Victoria Terminus, the world’s grandest railway station, and the white-domed Prince of Wales Museum (both nowadays renamed after the 17th century Maharashtrian warlord, Shivaji). Nearby, the vast High Court and University buildings line the palm-fringed Maidans, where cricketers in their whites play through the afternoons as commuters stream home through Churchgate Station.