Anyone can receive a blessing from the temple elephant, Lakshmi. (After you give her a 100-rupee note, she whacks you gratefully on the head.) But train passengers have a special advantage: You go back at night to Hampi's central Vittala Temple complex, a compound of intricately sculpted halls with rows of pillars and the central stone chariot that gives the train its name.

FORBES: Photograph: Andre Fanthome (RAAS)

Virtually every visible interior surface of this stone temple, save the floor, is devoted to sculpted representations of deities and mythical beings drawn from the gospels of the Jain sects.

WSJ: Enlightenment on an Intimate Scale | The Adinatha Temple at Ranakpur | Masterpiece by James S. Ackerman