The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
On track for 10 great Indian adventures
There is no better way to experience this fabulous country than by rail. Stephen McClarence picks his favourite trips
Mid-morning on Indian trains, the carriage attendant checks if you want lunch. He phones ahead to a station two or three stops up the line and the kitchens are alerted. When the train reaches the station, staff swarm aboard with trays carrying plastic bowls of sloppy curries that may look unappetising but generally taste delicious.
They’re quickly eaten – and then passengers settle down on their bunks for an afternoon doze, lulled by the trundling train’s der-dum-der-dum rhythm, the sonorous snores of fellow travellers and the trilling of mobile phones somewhere up the carriage.
My wife and I have been eating and dozing on Indian trains for 25 years and here I have selected 10 of our favourites. Our longest journey was a 2,300mile (3,700km) rail-trek for The Telegraph – from the most westerly station (Okha in the state of Gujarat) to the most easterly (Ledo in Assam, 20 miles/32km from the Burmese border).
We stopped at or rumbled through 600 stations. It was never for a moment dull. At one point, we had a compartment full of people curious to know why we had embarked on such a quixotic journey.
The reason is that we love Indian trains and their sense of time suspended. As vast landscapes drift past the window, you absorb their beauty: women sashaying along dusty paths as they carry water back to their villages, playing children, old men stretched out in the afternoon heat on their charpoy rope beds. There’s time to read and think, before dashing off the train at stations to buy chai (tea) poured from a huge and battered tin kettle.
Gradually afternoon merges into evening and it’s “cowdust time”, the magical half-hour of twilight when cows amble back to their villages and newly lit fires send scarves of smoke wreathing low across the fields. Night falls and it’s time to settle back on your bunk for another serenade of snoring.
I wish I were there now.
PUBLIC TRAINS 1 VIVEK EXPRESS
India’s longest train journey – the weekly Vivek Express – starts at the tea-planting town of Dibrugarh in the far north east of India, at 11.05pm on Saturdays. It arrives at Kanyakumari at the nation’s southern tip at 9.50am on the following Wednesday. This epic 82-hour journey (costing around £43 in 2AC), covers more than 2,600 miles (4,184km), with 56 stops including coastal towns overlooking the Bay of Bengal. You can make the return trip on the Thursday, but probably wouldn’t want to.
2 DARJEELING HIMALAYAN RAILWAY
The “Toy Train” from Kalka to Shimla – currently marking the 10th anniversary of its Unesco-listed status – gets most attention, but two other great Indian hill-station routes are just as interesting – to Ooty (Udhagamandalam) in the south and to Darjeeling in the north. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a World Heritage Site, was built to rescue Victorian plains-dwellers from sweltering summer heat. With no undue haste, it covers 55 ever-cooler miles (90km) in seven hours, sometimes weaving through village streets, and climbing to more than 7,000ft, with panoramic views. The basic journey costs around £4 first class, but various packages are available. See searchdarjeeling. com.
3 KONKAN RAILWAY
Linking Mumbai
(India at its most hectic) and Goa (India at its most laid-back) and carrying on south almost to Kerala, the Konkan Railway’s 450-mile (724km) line hugs the west coast, parallel to the Arabian Sea. It crosses 2,000 bridges, including India’s highest viaduct. At around £16 in 2AC, the Mandovi Express train takes just over 11 hours to reach the attractive Goan town of Madgaon, with its old Portuguese houses. The landscape is lush, particularly in the monsoon season.
4 KANGRA VALLEY RAILWAY
The Kangra Valley Railway is a collector’s item and a miser’s dream. Tickets for its 100-mile (160km) journey through beautiful northern Indian landscapes cost from around 50p. Set aside a day for the full journey, east from Pathankot to the town of Joginder Nagar. It takes 10 hours, though most passengers are locals travelling a few stops (there are
number of stations
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billion approximate number of passengers carried per year 33 all told). The line passes tea gardens and orange groves before glistening mountains loom ahead.
5 DESERT TRAIN
The line from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer links two of Rajasthan’s most popular historic cities. The six-hour trip (costing around £8 in 2AC) is an alternative desert safari, replacing traditional camel trains with – well – trains. The expanses of sand offer glimpses of wildlife and scattered settlements. The train starts the previous evening in Delhi and calls at Jaipur, the third Rajasthani “J”.