“The Maharajah hotel train’s Deccan Odyssey is something new. India’s vast railway has always had sleepers, but this trip is an Orient Express for the subcontinent, initially between Mumbai and Delhi, later with a second train in the east. It represents no small logistical challenge: they must make space for a long train on a tight timetable, meet coaches and guides, and somehow dispose of it while passengers spend days sightseeing. There was a great deal of rapid Hindi talked into mobile phones all the launch week.

Yet the Maharajah met its deadlines, from the moment we pulled out of Mumbai, staring aghast at a packed commuter train alongside with three men sitting insouciantly on the roof.

We gazed, and ate a sweet light curry served with smiling elegance by lads in Maharashtra state costume, their gold-threaded red hats a curious echo of Renaissance Europe. By 6am we were in the sticks, at the tiny, dusty station of Daulatabad. Outside, four men lugged a set of redcarpeted steps to get us down over the rails.

Garlands were flung around our necks, and from behind a shed appeared a troupe of young dancers, led by a kohled and sinuous master with a face of timeless mischief. They danced. How they danced. They made Canadian Susie dance with them, ……………….”