Jaisalmer - A Golden City

Rajasthan is India's most colourful state and our plan was to visit each key colourful city - Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur and Jaipur. First up, Jaisalmer 'The Gold City' in Western Rajasthan's Thar Desert. We instantly fell for the charm of this enchanting fortified city built entirely from golden sandstone - it's like stepping back in time or on to the set of some kind of Arabian nights film. The fort is huge at 70m tall and it's around 850 years old. Today approximately 4,000 people live within its walls and 99 bastions. 

It's a great place to wander aimlessly for hours, the narrow winding alleys are crammed with guest houses, local houses (all of which are freehold), souvenir shops, restaurants and Jain temples. The shopping is amazing too - from beautiful silk bedding to painted wooden shutters - we couldn't resist purchasing a few 'essentials' for our imaginary future home back in the UK.  We left with a very tightly packed 13kg box and a vague idea of how much it would cost to ship home...

Back in the Medieval day Jaisalmer Fort was besieged by a neighbouring Sultan after his prized horse had been stolen by the Prince of Jaisalmer. This led to the suicide of all 16,000 women living inside the fort after 1,700 soldiers faced with certain defeat charged to their death,the Rajput code is death before dishonour and is known as the rite of jauhar.

When in the desert a camel ride at sunset is a must-do. It was a fun experience, camels are constantly chewing leaves so are very flatulent! Vic's camel was called Marco Polo and Steve's Michael Jackson, both were equally lovely and happy chaps. The ride itself was just 45 minutes and the pink-orange sunset was beautiful. As camping had been cancelled, that evening we stayed in the lovely Mud Mirror guest house situated within the forts wall, our room and their rooftop restaurant had fantastic views over the newer (also gold sandstone) city below and their thalis were pretty special!

"A Guest House with a view."

We definitely recommend a visit to Jaisalmer but you might want to avoid summer when the temperature averages 45 degrees. Scorchio!