Jaisalmer, Rajasthan

Jailsamer, a place to experience sun, sand, art, food, literature and folk stories in one shot !

Jaisalmer is well known tourist destination around the world. Situated far west of Jaipur, the capital of  Rajasthan, it is truely a 'Golden City', an oasis in the middle of the Thar desert. It is astonishing sometimes to believe an arid land majorly filled with sand and extreme warm temperature has so much to offer, right from beautiful palaces to lakes and delicious food to literature, one would get everything in this gem of the erstwhile pricely state. Being on the ages old silk route route, this city prospered and over the centuries has inculcated rich culture, tradition and lot of interesting stories to be told.

Lets start the journey and the stories ...

Places to explore : Jaisalmer Fort, Sam Sand Dunes, Kuldhara, Longewala and Tanot border villages and Gadisar lake.
Best time to visit : October to March.

Jaisalmer Fort
Jaisalmer means 'The fort of Jaisal'. King Rawal Jaisal Singh founded this city in around 1156 AD  and establish his new capital on top of the flattened Trikuta hill that hosts today's Jaisalmer Fort with 99 bastions surrounding it. The fort has remained unconquered till now. There were many attempts made to capture it by cutting of the supply lines and surrounding it all sides, but all failed.

The Jaisalmer fort houses many exquisite houses, palace, Jain temples , a bazaar, small restaurants, houses, hostels and people still live inside the fort. Its a mini city inside. The beauty of the intricate designs and ornate work done on the palace's sandstone walls and temples can't be justified in celluloid. Its best to experience it in person. Now when you know the story, you can relate to the bygone era and immerse in the engineering marvel of centuries old architecture as you explore the gullies, alleys and palaces inside this beautiful fort city.

Sam Sand Dunes (Thar Desert)

Exploring the sand dunes and beauty of Thar deseert has to be on the bucket list of every traveller visiting Jaisalmer. Sam (pronounced as 'sum') sand dunes are more famous than Khuri. If you prefer to be more secluded and off-the-crowd then you can go for Khuri. There are many luxurious camp sites before the dunes and one can enjoy parties, bonfire and barbeque in evenig along with live music there. Sand dunes are around 40 mins drive from city.

I preferred to roll and ride in sand so we decided to camp and travel to little off route from Sam sand dunes. The Jeep dropped us to one point and after that we were on camels to reach the camping spot. The ride took one hour humping up and down till we reached a spot where we were surrounded by sand dunes all around us. The sunset in the desert is totally different experience. The crimson scarlet rays fill the clear sky and the colour are so vivid that it feels someone painted the sky. Since it was October, the mercury was on little lower side. The best thing about sand is that it gets cooler at the same rate as it gets warmer. The night was cool. Camping under the stars with clear sky and no habitation miles around was very calming and we were star gazing most of the night. Try to time your visit during some meteor shower. You would love the experience.

Kuldhara

It is an abandoned village around 40 km from Jaisalmer city. The village was settled in 13th century by people from Pali. The village contains ruined houses, buildings, agricultural articles like chariot, plow etc. The village was abandoned in 19th century for unknown reasons. Archeologists claim that it was due to earthquakes and scarcity of water. There is a local legend according to which the place is haunted and its inhabitants while abandoning it because of atrocities of local ruler cursed that it would never be settled again. It indeed has never been settled again even after multiple attempts and presently it is under Archeological Survey of India.

Longewala and Tanot
If you are Indian and millennial you would remember the movie named "Border" and the song "Sandese Aate Hain...". The movie was based on the battle of 1971 fought between India and Pakistan at Longewala. This is the place where the battle was fought. The Longewala village today is quite and calm border and visitors get to see the captured military tanks, vehicles, ammunition and a short film on the battle. 

Longewala is around 2 hours drive from Jaisalmer and no permits are required to visit the place (as of 2022). Tanot lies 50 kms (1 hour) drive from here and is famous for the Tanot temple. Tanot is also a border village and if one wants to go further up to the border post, a special permission is required to be obtained from military. However, the visit till Tanot temple doesn't require any permit.

We started travel for these villages in the second half of the day so couldn't spend much time. But we explored the Lonewala post memorial, watched the short film and attended the evening prayers in Tanot temple.

Lakes, Havelis, Food and Literature
The day full of travel and hopping can be ended with a leisure visit to Gadisar lake in Jaisalmer city. It is an oasis in the desert. Constructed by king Rawal Jaisal Singh in 1156 AD as water reservoir, it now serves as a perfect getaway to enjoy cool breeze to escape from the scorching heat of the day. 

Jaisalmer is also dotted with beautiful and intricately designed Havelis which are open for public to visit and shop in their home boutique. Some of the famous ones are Patwon ki Haveli, Nathmal Ji ki Haveli. There is a tradition in Jaisalmer to write the name of newly married couples on one wall of the house and you will find it at many places written in calligraphy. 

No travel is complete without experiencing the local cuisine. While in Jaisalmer do try Daal Baati Choorma, Gatte ki Sabji, Makhania Lassi and for the dessert head to Dhanraj Rawal Bhatia's sweet shop for Ghotua ladoo. The recipe is the family heirloom and has been secret for over 100 years now.

Apart from lakes, havelis and food, Jaisalmer also hosts literary festival every year which involves writing, story telling poetry sessions and meetups.

I hope you would get to explore this place  and have great time here. There are many hill station paradises in this world but only this Golden City Jaisalmer will be the paradise of desert in the world.

PS: Bhadariya Library located in Bhadariya village in Jaisalmer is one the biggest libraries in Asia. It is an underground library and is 16 ft. deep housing more than 900K books on variety of domains and subjects. That's an oasis for all bibliophiles out there !