A capital raised on a three-peaked hill
Lodurva first: the old Bhati capital, about fifteen kilometres northwest, sat on open ground and had been sacked more than once.
Trikuta: Rawal Jaisal found something stronger, a ridge of yellow sandstone with three low summits rising about 76 metres above the plain.
The name: in 1156 he began the fort that carries his name, completed by mer, a hill or rocky height. Jaisal's hill.
- Founded
- 1156, by Rawal Jaisal
- The hill
- Trikuta, about 76 m above the plain
- Old capital
- Lodurva, about 15 km northwest
- Bastions
- 99, mostly built 1633-1647
- Joined Rajasthan
- 1949
- A city on the road: for six centuries it sat on caravan routes carrying spices, silk, opium, indigo and salt between Sindh, Persia and northern India.
- Maharawals and merchants: the Bhati rulers, titled Maharawal, taxed the caravans. Merchant families, many Jain, grew rich and spent it on temples and finely carved houses.
- Siege of about 1299: the forces of Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate besieged the fort. The city tells Chittor's story: the women chose jauhar, death by fire, and the men rode out to die.
- Two and a half sakas: local tradition counts two full last stands and one that ended half-finished. Our guides tell it on the ramparts where it happened.
- Peace and walls: the Bhatis later made peace with the Mughals. Most of the ninety-nine bastions were built or rebuilt between 1633 and 1647.
- A quiet decline: sea trade through Bombay drained the caravan routes in the nineteenth century, and Partition in 1947 closed the road west to Sindh.
- A border town: Jaisalmer joined the new state of Rajasthan in 1949, remote and on the frontier.
- Back on the map: the army built roads across the desert, and Satyajit Ray's 1974 film Sonar Kella, the golden fortress, made the fort famous across Bengal. The nickname is still painted on half the shop signs.
Sonar Qila, a fort with a postman
A living fort: around four thousand people live inside, roughly a quarter of the old city, mostly in houses their families have occupied for generations.
Old roles: many families first came to serve the court as priests, soldiers and craftsmen, and some descendants have never lived anywhere else.
Sonar Qila: the golden fort. The name is no exaggeration at four in the afternoon, when the low sun turns every wall the colour of honey.
- Size
- About 460 m by 230 m
- Walls
- Three lines
- Residents
- Around 4,000 people
- Gates
- Four, on a doubling ramp
- Watch list
- World Monuments Fund, 1996, 1998, 2000
- The way in: four great gates on a ramp that doubles back on itself, designed to slow down elephants and attackers.
- Dussehra Chowk: the main square where the ramp ends, with the royal palace on one side.
- The Raj Mahal: once the Maharawals' residence, now a museum. Its upper terraces give the best view across the roofs to the desert.
- Further in: lanes twist past the Laxminath temple, to Lakshmi and Vishnu, and havelis where women sweep doorsteps and dry papads on the roof.
- Why it's fragile: it stands on soft sedimentary rock, and the old drainage, the ghut nali, was built for a town that carried its water uphill by hand.
- Too much water: piped water, guesthouses and tourist kitchens now pour far more into the ground than the hill can absorb. Seepage has weakened foundations, and parts of walls and buildings have collapsed.
- Conservation: drainage and repair work has continued since the fort's years on the watch list.
- With our guides: tea in a courtyard, a roof above the bastions, and which lane flooded in which year.
- Read more: our journal on living inside Jaisalmer Fort, and our full Jaisalmer Fort guide.
The Jain temples inside the walls
Who paid: the merchant families who ran the caravan trade, and they spent with extraordinary patience.
The carving: columns break into dancers, ceilings open like flowers, and brackets become celestial musicians no bigger than your hand.
Parshvanath: the largest temple honours the twenty-third tirthankara, or ford-maker, his image crowned by the hoods of a serpent.
- Temples
- Seven, linked by passages
- Sect
- Shvetambara
- Built
- 12th to 16th centuries
- Where
- Southwest corner of the fort
- Best time
- Morning worship
- Sambhavanatha: built by Askaran Chopra of Merta, with more than six hundred images.
- The Gyan Bhandar: beneath it, a library of palm-leaf and paper manuscripts in painted wooden covers, kept safe by monks and merchants through centuries of war. Scholars still come for it.
- Ashtapad: another of the seven, built by Chopra Panchaji.
- How to visit: in the morning, when worship is under way and light comes through the latticework in shafts.
- Etiquette: leave shoes and anything leather outside, cover shoulders and knees, and don't touch the images. See our page on temple etiquette.
- Beyond the fort: the Jain temples at Lodurva, the old capital, and at Amar Sagar on the edge of town are worth the short drive.
The merchant havelis of the old town
Closed to the street: a haveli is built around one or more courtyards, open only to the sky.
- Haveli
- A townhouse around courtyards
- Patwon ki Haveli
- Begun 1805, about 50 years to finish
- Salim Singh's haveli
- Early 19th century
- Nathmal's haveli
- Around 1885
- Upward and outward: here they grew tall because space below the fort was precious, and outward through jharokhas, balconies for watching the street unseen.
- Hundreds of fronts: walk the lanes between the fort and Gadisar with our guide, and three houses stand apart. See also our guide to painted and carved havelis.
Patwon ki Haveli, five houses for five sons
Who built it: the merchant Guman Chand Patwa, from 1805. The Patwas traded in gold and silver thread, brocade and jewels.
Five sons, five houses: the cluster took about fifty years to finish.
- The facades: a wall of jharokhas, screens and carved brackets, so dense you can stand an hour and keep finding new details.
- Today: the Archaeological Survey of India restored parts of it, and one house is a private museum furnished as a merchant's home.
- When: in the morning, before the lane fills.
Salim Singh ki Haveli, the minister's house
Who he was: prime minister of Jaisalmer in the early nineteenth century, remembered as a tyrant who taxed merchants and farmers without mercy.
- The house: a plain lower body, then a top storey flaring into balconies, its arched roof resting on brackets carved as peacocks.
- The favourite story: he planned it to rise as high as the royal palace, and the upper storeys were cut back on the ruler's orders.
- Local feeling: few buildings carry so much, and many families still name him when they tell the story of Kuldhara.
Nathmal ki Haveli, built by two brothers
Built for: Diwan Mohata Nathmal, a minister of the state, around 1885.
- At the door: two stone elephants.
- The story: two brothers, Hathi and Lulu, carved it, one the left half and one the right, and they never quite agreed.
- Spot the difference: the halves match in outline but differ in detail. Part of the house is still lived in.
Lakes, cenotaphs and ruins beyond the walls
- Gadisar Lake
- Sunrise
- Bada Bagh
- Sunset, about 6 km north
- Vyas Chhatri
- The half hour after sunset
- Lodurva, Amar Sagar
- A quiet morning
- Akal Fossil Park
- About 17 km out on the Barmer road
Gadisar Lake, at first light
The city's water: before canals, this tank was it. Maharawal Gadsi Singh built or rebuilt it in the fourteenth century.
- Every morning: its ghats and small temples once filled with pilgrims and water-carriers.
- Tilon ki Pol: the carved gateway, said to be paid for by a courtesan called Tilon. The ruler refused to walk beneath it, and she saved it by placing a Krishna shrine on top.
- At sunrise: the pavilions in the water reflect perfectly and the ghats are still empty.
Bada Bagh, the royal cenotaphs
A green patch: Maharawal Jait Singh II, in the early sixteenth century, built a dam to hold rainwater about six kilometres north of town.
The first chhatri: his son Lunkaran laid out a garden and raised a domed memorial pavilion to his father on the ridge above.
- The last one: begun for Maharawal Jawahar Singh, left unfinished after independence.
- Read the stones: our guides show you how the carved horsemen tell who died in battle.
- Sunset: gold on gold, with modern wind turbines turning on the horizon.
Vyas Chhatri, for the sunset view of the fort
- Where: on the ridge just north of the walls, chhatris named after the sage Vyasa, looking straight across at the fort.
- Our timing: it's busier than Bada Bagh, so we come for the half hour after sunset, when the crowds leave and the fort's lights come on one by one.
Lodurva and Amar Sagar
Lodurva: the Bhati capital before Jaisalmer. Little survives except its Jain temple, with a finely carved gateway and a hush the town never has.
- Amar Sagar: on the way, a royal tank with a small palace, ghats and another beautifully carved Jain temple.
- Together: an easy, quiet morning.
Kuldhara and the fossil park
Kuldhara: southwest of town, Kuldhara is the most visited of the abandoned Paliwal Brahmin villages, with the ruined fort of Khaba beyond.
- Akal Wood Fossil Park: about seventeen kilometres out on the Barmer road, the stone trunks of trees that grew here some 180 million years ago, when this desert was forest.
- On the way to the dunes: both fit neatly on the drive. Our page on the Desert National Park explains the fossils.
The Manganiyar singers of the desert
Bound to patrons: for centuries each family was tied to patron families, mostly Hindu Rajputs, whose births, weddings and deaths they marked with song.
The jajman: the patron. The relationship passed from father to son on both sides.
What they sing: the genealogies and deeds of their patrons' ancestors, songs to the Hindu gods and Sufi verses, often in the same evening.
- Who
- Hereditary Muslim musicians of the Thar
- Districts
- Jaisalmer, Barmer, Jodhpur
- Instrument
- The kamaicha, a bowed lute
- Hear them
- Village courtyards, haveli roofs, the folk festival
- The Langas: their neighbours, more numerous around Barmer, served Muslim Sindhi Sipahi patrons and play the Sindhi sarangi.
- The kamaicha: a round belly of mango wood covered in goatskin, with sympathetic strings that hum under the melody.
- The rest of the band: the dholak drum, the morchang, a jaw harp that twangs like a desert insect, and the khartal, wooden clappers played at astonishing speed.
- Watch the khartal player: he is usually grinning.
- To the world stage: from the late 1970s the Jodhpur folklorist Komal Kothari helped them perform beyond their villages. Groups now play concert halls from Paris to New York.
- Hard times at home: the old patronage has weakened, and many families struggle.
- Our evenings: musicians paid properly and directly, in a village courtyard or on a haveli roof, choosing their own songs.
- Read and listen: our pieces on the Manganiyar singers and Manganiyar music, and the Rajasthan International Folk Festival in Jodhpur.
Where to stay in and around Jaisalmer
- Near town
- Suryagarh, about 13 km out
- Desert camp
- The Serai, about 40 minutes
- Dunes
- Sam, or quieter Khuri
- En route
- Manvar or Khimsar
Suryagarh
Where: about thirteen kilometres out on the Sam road.
- What it is: a modern fort in the old Jaisalmer manner, in the same yellow stone, around courtyards and a pool.
- Why stay: the space and calm the town lacks, a spa, and long dinners in its courtyards.
- Best for: families, and guests who want the fort by day and quiet at night.
The Serai
Where: SUJAN's camp, on about a hundred acres of private desert scrub off the Jodhpur road, around forty minutes from town.
- The tents: large, beautifully furnished suites in wonderfully quiet land.
- Choose it for: romance, walks at dawn and firelit dinners that feel like a private expedition.
A night in the dunes
- Sand outside your tent: we arrange a night at the dunes of Sam or, for more quiet, Khuri.
- Choose carefully: camp quality varies enormously. Our guide to luxury desert camps explains what we look for.
On the way in
- From Jodhpur: break the journey at Manvar Desert Camp for a first taste of the Thar, or at Khimsar Fort.
- Compare them all: in luxury hotels in Jaisalmer.
Desert food and the bazaars below the fort
Ker sangri: ker is a small, sharp berry from a leafless desert shrub, and sangri the long beans of the khejri tree the desert depends on. Dried in summer, cooked tangy and nutty with oil and chilli.
Panchkuta: its richer cousin, five dried desert ingredients cooked together.
Bajre ki roti: pearl-millet flatbread smeared with ghee, eaten with fiery garlic chutney.
- Must try
- Ker sangri
- Bread
- Bajre ki roti, pearl millet
- Winter drink
- Raabdi, millet and buttermilk
- Main bazaar
- Manak Chowk, below the fort gate
- Kadhi: yoghurt simmered with gram flour.
- Raabdi: in winter, a warming drink of millet and buttermilk that farming families have lived on for centuries.
- Eat vegetarian here: laal maas is on most menus, but the merchant heritage is largely Jain, and the vegetarian thali is the more local meal.
- A special evening: a rooftop facing the fort, timed for its floodlights, or a private dinner among the cenotaphs at Bada Bagh.
- Our favourites: in the food of Jaisalmer guide.
- Manak Chowk: below the fort gate, mirrorwork embroidery, appliqué bedspreads, village-woven woollen shawls, silver jewellery and carved stone.
- Meet the makers: the best textile work comes from villages around Jaisalmer and Barmer, and we'd rather take you to the women who make it.
- How to bargain: gently, and walk away with a smile if the price is wrong.
- Handwork or machine: our shopping guide shows how to tell.
When to come to Jaisalmer
October to March: sunny, warm days.
December and January: nights in the dunes can drop close to freezing, so pack a proper jacket for camp.
- Season
- October to March
- Coldest nights
- December and January, near freezing in the dunes
- Most comfortable
- February and March
- Hottest
- May and June, past 45°C
- February and March: the best balance of warm days and mild nights.
- April to June: the heat builds fast, and in May and June the town regularly passes 45°C.
- The monsoon: very little rain this far west, but when it comes the desert turns briefly green and the town empties.
- Month by month: our best time to visit Jaisalmer guide.
The Desert Festival, in February
When: three days in the Hindu month of Magh, around the full moon. Dates shift each year with the lunar calendar.
- What happens: turban-tying contests, a famous moustache competition, camel races, parades, and folk musicians and dancers from across the region.
- The finale: out at the Sam dunes, an evening of music under a nearly full moon.
- Book early: the best rooms sell out, so tell us as soon as you know.
Diwali and the winter weeks
- Diwali: in October or November the fort is lit with lamps and the town fills with families visiting relatives.
- Christmas and New Year: the busiest weeks for desert camps, which need booking months ahead.
Getting to Jaisalmer and getting around
From Jodhpur: about five hours through Marwar's farming villages, past Pokaran and the scrub country. See our notes on the Jodhpur to Jaisalmer route.
By air: the airport runs seasonal winter flights, recently from Delhi and Mumbai, and closes to civil flights for much of the summer. We confirm schedules when we plan.
- From Jodhpur
- About 5 hours by road
- To Bikaner
- About 5-6 hours northeast
- Flights
- Seasonal, winter months only
- Trains
- To Jodhpur, Jaipur and Delhi
- By train: services link Jaisalmer with Jodhpur, Jaipur and Delhi, including overnight trains.
- To Bikaner: about five to six hours northeast, which makes the desert triangle a natural loop.
- In town: you walk the fort and old town. The lanes are too narrow for cars, so your chauffeur waits below the gates.
- Timing the drive: we plan long drives so you arrive in the late afternoon, as the fort turns gold. Our guide to getting around Rajasthan explains how.
Two days in Jaisalmer and a night in the desert
- Nights
- Three: two near town, one in the desert
- Day one
- The fort and the Jain temples
- Day two
- Lodurva, Bada Bagh and music
- Day three
- Into the Thar
- With more time: a day in the Desert National Park for the great Indian bustard, or a trip south to the temples and embroidery villages of Barmer.
- Longer versions: in our Jaisalmer itinerary, and Under the Thar Sky, our seven-night desert journey.
Day one, the fort and the Jain temples
Sunrise: Gadisar, with a rowing boat and tea on the ghats.
- Morning: up into the fort as it wakes, the Jain temples during worship, then the Raj Mahal for the view.
- Midday: lunch and rest at your hotel.
- Late afternoon: the haveli lanes, Patwon, Salim Singh and Nathmal, then the fort lighting up from Vyas Chhatri.
Day two, Lodurva, Bada Bagh and music
Morning: Amar Sagar and Lodurva, in the cool.
- Sunset: after lunch and a long rest, Bada Bagh among the cenotaphs.
- Evening: Manganiyar musicians in a courtyard, over a desert supper of ker sangri and bajra roti.
Day three, into the Thar
Late morning: leave town, stopping at the Akal fossil park, Kuldhara and Khaba.
- Late afternoon: reach your desert camp for a gentle camel walk onto the dunes.
- Night: dinner by the fire and a sky full of stars, with stargazing through a telescope if you want it.
What we tell our cousins before Jaisalmer
Stay outside the fort: and visit it every day. The hill cannot take more water, and you'll sleep better in a quiet hotel anyway.
Carry a scarf: the sun is fierce even in January, and when the wind lifts the sand it is the first thing you'll reach for.
- Skip cheap camel safaris: decline politely when a stranger offers one. Ask us, so you know the animals are well treated and the camp is the one you were promised.
- In the Jain temples: leave leather outside and keep your voice low. These are places of worship first.
- Pay musicians directly and generously: their families have lived by music for centuries, and the old patrons are fewer every year.
- Book early: for Christmas, New Year and the Desert Festival. Jaisalmer's best rooms are few.
