A word for hospitality, and a place
Most of our guests stop for a practical reason. The road through this country looks much the same for long stretches. Arrive for lunch, spend the evening in the dunes, continue next morning, and you reach Jaisalmer rested, having seen a side of the desert its crowded dunes can't give you.
The word: manvar, sometimes manuhar, is Marwari for the coaxing, generous hospitality of the desert: the extra roti, the tea you cannot refuse, the plea to stay one more night.
The place: a local family named their dune camps after it, and travellers now use the name for this stretch of desert halfway between Jodhpur and Jaisalmer.
- The word
- Manvar, also written manuhar
- Meaning
- Coaxing desert hospitality
- Founded by
- Moti Singh Rathore
- Area
- Shergarh, western Marwar
- Jodhpur to Jaisalmer
- About five hours by road
- At a wedding: guests sit in long rows on the ground while hosts walk along with baskets of sweets and pots of ghee, refusing to take no for an answer.
- Covering your plate: a guest who covers his plate with his hands only invites a more theatrical round of pleading.
- A measure of a family: songs are sung about it, and old men still judge a family by how well it presses its guests.
- Why it matters here: where food and water were scarce, sharing them was the highest honour. A traveller reaching a village at dusk could expect a meal and a bed, and you'll meet that instinct in the villages today.
- The founder: Moti Singh Rathore came home to the Shergarh area to build the camps.
- A conservation link: he has spoken of being inspired by his uncle, Fateh Singh Rathore, the forester remembered as the father of Ranthambore and one of India's great tiger conservationists.
- How it shows: the camps are run with respect for the desert and its villages, and many staff come from those villages.
- Old Rathore country: small forts, farming hamlets and grazing grounds on Marwar's western edge, where Jodhpur's farmland gives way to the true Thar.
- Its families: generations sent sons to fight for the rulers of Jodhpur. Today the area is better known for carpenters, horse trainers, herders and some of the quietest dunes you can reach on a good road.
The desert here, read closely
A lived-in desert: the Thar is one of the most densely populated deserts in the world.
The dunes: long and low, some shifting with the wind and some held by grass and shrubs, with farmland and hamlets in the hollows.
The colours: pale gold at noon, rose and copper as the sun goes down.
- Reading the sand: after a monsoon shower the dunes are crossed with tracks of beetles, lizards, foxes and birds, and our guides read them like a newspaper.
- Khejri: the tree of life of the Thar. Its pods are cooked as sangri, its leaves feed goats and camels, and the Bishnoi and many other families will not cut it green.
- Rohida: Rajasthan's state flower, bursting into orange and yellow blossom in late winter.
- Ker: a leafless caper bush whose berries go into ker sangri.
- Phog and aak: phog binds the dunes with its roots, and aak, with purple flowers and milky sap, grows everywhere.
- Sevan and kumat: sevan grass, the best desert fodder, names one of the camps. Kumat, a thorny acacia whose seeds are cooked in desert kitchens, names another.
- At dawn and dusk: chinkara graze the scrub at dawn. Desert foxes, jackals and the odd desert cat come out at dusk.
- Lizards and winter birds: spiny-tailed lizards sun outside their burrows, and winter brings larks, coursers, sandgrouse and harriers.
- Cranes and bustards: thousands of demoiselle cranes winter at nearby Khichan. Further west, the Desert National Park is one of the last refuges of the great Indian bustard.
Camps and a resort, and how to choose
The desert camp
The original: a circle of safari-style tents in the dunes, with proper beds and private bathrooms with hot water.
- Sociable and simple: meals are served together in a dining tent, with music by the fire in the evening.
- Season: it opens only in the cool months.
The quieter serenity camp
- A short walk away: a smaller camp with more spacious air-conditioned tents, its own lounge and restaurant, and a pool.
- Who it suits: more secluded and calmer, it is our usual choice for couples and guests who want privacy.
The desert resort at Shergarh
- Walls rather than canvas: a small resort a few kilometres away, with rooms, air-conditioning and a swimming pool.
- A longer season: it stays open beyond the camp months, and camp guests can use its pool.
How we choose
Couples: the quieter camp.
- Families who enjoy company: the main camp.
- Shoulder months: when afternoons can be hot, the resort is the safer bet.
- Read more: our luxury desert camp guide and our page on Manvar Desert Camp.
How to spend a desert day
A jeep safari to the dunes
- Late afternoon: an open jeep across sand tracks to a high dune, stopping for birds, chinkara and village life.
- Sunset: sit on the crest with something cold to drink. Our jeep safari page describes the routes.
A camel ride
The slowest, loveliest way across the sand: a herder walks alongside.
- Care for the animals: we keep rides to the cool hours and choose handlers who look after their camels.
- Longer rides: keen riders can ask for a camel safari with a picnic lunch.
A village walk
- In the morning: walk to a nearby hamlet with a guide from the area and meet a family in their courtyard.
- What you'll see: round huts, grain stores and the underground tank that holds the rainwater, with tea brewed over a fire.
A picnic in the dunes
- Under a khejri tree: on a cool winter day the camp sets lunch in the middle of the sand, with rugs, bolsters and rotis cooked on the spot.
- Simple luxury: one of the most memorable meals of a journey.
Music by the fire
- Each evening: musicians and dancers from the desert communities perform around the fire.
- Then the stars: the lights go off. Our guide to stargazing in the Thar tells you what to look for.
The people of the Shergarh desert
Rajputs: the old landholders and warriors of the area.
Bishnoi farmers: their faith forbids cutting green trees or harming animals, and chinkara and blackbuck often graze around their villages. Read about Bishnoi villages.
Herders and craftspeople: Raika and other herders move camels, goats and sheep across the desert. Bhil families keep their own traditions of archery and art, alongside potters, carpenters and leatherworkers.
- The Manganiyars: Muslim hereditary musicians who for centuries sang for Rajput and other Hindu patrons at births and weddings.
- Their sound: the bowed kamaicha, and ballads of love and heroes in voices that carry across the dunes.
- The Langhas: another musician community, traditionally singers for Muslim Sindhi Sipahi patrons, known for the sarangi and the double flute.
- Read more: our pages on Manganiyar music and the Manganiyar singers.
- The Kalbelias: once snake-charmers, famous for whirling black skirts and astonishing flexibility, danced to the pungi, a gourd pipe.
- UNESCO recognition: Kalbelia songs and dances are part of the world's intangible cultural heritage. Read about Kalbelia dance.
- Men's dress: white dhotis or kurtas and large, bright turbans, often tied to signal community.
- Women's dress: wide skirts and odhnis, long veils, in reds, oranges and yellows, with heavy silver jewellery.
Food in the desert
Dal baati: baked wheat rolls broken into lentils and soaked in ghee.
The rest of the spread: ker sangri, gatte ki sabzi, kadhi and thick bajra rotis from an open fire, with garlic chutney and white butter.
- Ker sangri explained: berries and beans that families dry in summer to eat all year. Our ker sangri piece tells the story.
- Meat: laal maas, fiery red mutton, appears at theme dinners and Rajput feasts.
- Sweets: simple and rich: churma, lapsi and malpua, sweet pancakes fried in ghee.
- Breakfast: often poha or parathas with fresh curd, eaten in the morning sun.
- Dietary needs: tell us in advance and the camp kitchen will cook for you.
- The setting: a dune picnic, dinner round the fire, chai on a crest at sunset. The food is good, and the setting makes it unforgettable.
On the road from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer
Leaving Jodhpur
- Before you go: an early morning at Mehrangarh or a last walk in the old city of Jodhpur.
- The road west: farmland and small towns, sandier with every hour. Our Jodhpur to Jaisalmer route guide has the stops.
Detours to Khichan and Lohawat
- The cranes: with a spare winter morning, drive north towards Phalodi for the demoiselle cranes of Khichan, which fly in from Central Asia to be fed by villagers.
- Lohawat: its Bishnoi temple makes another rewarding stop in the Bishnoi heartland.
Pokaran and Ramdevra
Pokaran: further west, with its old fort.
- Ramdevra: the shrine of Baba Ramdev, a fourteenth-century folk saint revered by Hindus and Muslims alike as Ramdev Pir.
- The pilgrimage: in the monsoon month of Bhadrapada, pilgrims walk here from across Rajasthan and Gujarat.
The night sky over the dunes
Why it's so dark: far from any city, with dry air and little dust in winter, this is one of the darkest skies you can reach easily in Rajasthan.
What you see: on a moonless winter night the Milky Way runs overhead like smoke, with thousands of stars to the naked eye.
- Darkest months
- November to February
- Best nights
- Around the new moon
- Plough
- Saptarishi, the seven sages
- Pole Star
- Dhruv tara
- Pleiades
- Krittika
- Moving lights: shooting stars are common, and satellites slide across every few minutes.
- Saptarishi: the seven bright stars of the Plough are the seven sages.
- Dhruv tara: the Pole Star, named after the boy prince whose devotion won him a fixed place in the sky. Herders once kept direction by it on night journeys.
- Krittika: the little cluster of the Pleiades.
- Ask for a story: camp staff or musicians usually know one.
- Full moon: it turns the dunes silver and bright enough to walk by, but washes out the fainter stars.
When to come to Manvar
October and March: warm, sunny days and pleasant nights, though afternoons can still be hot.
November to February: perfect days and cold nights, sometimes near freezing. Tents have heaters or warm bedding, and you'll want a jacket by the fire.
- Camp season
- October to March
- Best months
- November to February
- Camps closed
- April to June
- Monsoon
- July to September
- Desert Festival
- January or February
- Folk festival
- October, Jodhpur
- Winter extras: the cranes at Khichan and the clearest night skies.
- Summer: very hot, with dusty afternoon winds, and the camps close.
- Monsoon: occasional heavy showers, a brief green flush on the dunes and, in a good year, wildflowers.
- Out of season: we book the resort or break the journey elsewhere.
- Desert Festival: the Jaisalmer Desert Festival fills the golden city with music, camel races and turban-tying contests.
- Folk festival: the Rajasthan International Folk Festival at Mehrangarh brings together many of the desert's finest musicians.
Getting to Manvar
From Jodhpur: about 110 kilometres, roughly two hours. Jodhpur Airport (JDH) is the nearest airport and railway hub.
From Jaisalmer: about 175 kilometres, roughly three hours.
- From Jodhpur
- About 110 km, two hours
- From Jaisalmer
- About 175 km, three hours
- From Bikaner
- About four hours
- Nearest airport
- Jodhpur (JDH)
- From Bikaner: about four hours, which makes Manvar a possible link on a wider desert circuit.
- The usual rhythm: a private chauffeur, arriving for lunch and leaving after breakfast.
- Plan each leg: our guide to road distances and drive times.
- Journeys it fits: Under the Thar Sky and our Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer journey.
One night or two at Manvar
With one night
Arrive for lunch: leave Jodhpur mid-morning and rest through the afternoon heat.
- Sunset: out by jeep or camel to the dunes, then dinner by the fire, music and stars.
- Next morning: an early village walk before breakfast, then on to Jaisalmer.
With two nights
A full desert day: a morning drive to the cranes of Khichan or a long village walk.
- Afternoon: a picnic under a khejri tree, then time by the pool.
- Evening: a second sunset from a different dune. Leave on the third morning rested.
What most visitors miss around Manvar
The Bishnoi rules: the faith founded by Guru Jambheshwar in the fifteenth century has twenty-nine principles, and the name is often explained as bis-noi, twenty and nine.
Khejarli, 1730: Amrita Devi and more than three hundred Bishnois near Jodhpur gave their lives rather than let the ruler's men fell their khejri trees.
- State tree
- Khejri
- State animal
- The camel
- Bishnoi founder
- Guru Jambheshwar, 15th century
- Crane season
- Roughly September to March
- Nuclear tests
- Near Pokaran, 1974 and 1998
- A protected tree: the khejri is Rajasthan's state tree, and the camel its state animal.
- The Khichan feeding ground: villagers scatter grain for the cranes each morning in an enclosure known as the chugga ghar. The birds arrive around September and leave by March.
- Pokaran's other history: India's nuclear tests of 1974 and 1998 took place in the desert near the town.
- Phalodi's heat: the town north of the camps recorded 51°C in May 2016, India's highest temperature on record. It explains why the camps close in summer.
- Shergarh today: it is a small town and sub-district of Jodhpur district, and the camps lie in its villages.
Travelling lightly in the desert
Where the water comes from: every litre at a desert camp is pumped from deep underground or trucked in, and nearby villages depend on the same supply.
Small kindnesses: short showers and reused towels are a genuine help here, not a hotel slogan.
- Refill, don't buy: ask your camp to refill a bottle with filtered water rather than handing you plastic ones.
- Plastic travels: wind carries a single bag for kilometres, and goats and camels eat what they find. Take your wrappers back to camp and leave nothing on a dune.
- Herders' animals: if they come near your picnic, let them be.
- Stay on the tracks: desert plants grow slowly, and tyre marks across grass or a dune crest can last for years.
- Keep evenings quiet: loud speakers carry a long way, and families in nearby hamlets go to bed early.
- How we work: our page on travelling responsibly.
Who Manvar is for
Road travellers: anyone crossing the desert who would rather spend a night in the dunes than five hours in a car.
Couples: a fire, a bottle of wine and a sky full of stars.
- Families: children talk about the camels for years.
- Photographers: sand, people and light without the crowds of the popular dunes.
- The curious: anyone who wants to see the desert as a place where people live, not a backdrop.
- Not for you if: you need a full hotel every night, a gym, a long menu or a lively bar. The camps are comfortable but simple by design.
- The alternative: stay in Jodhpur and Jaisalmer and do the desert on a sunset drive. Either way, cross in the cool months, when the desert is kindest.
What we tell friends before a desert camp
Pack layers: desert days are warm, but winter nights are cold and the temperature drops fast after sunset.
For the dry air: a scarf or soft cap, sunglasses, lip balm and a good moisturiser.
- A small torch: camps keep lighting low so that you can see the stars.
- In the villages: ask before photographing people, and don't hand out sweets or money to children.
- On a camel: lean back as it stands up and forward as it kneels. Hold on, and enjoy it.
- Leave the drone at home: desert silence is what everyone came for.
- Know what you want: Manvar is for quiet, nature and simple comfort. If you want a palace, push on to Jaisalmer and do the dunes as a day trip.
