Post 10: Jaisalmer fort and city
Woke up to an amazing sunrise at the Royal camps.
This was followed by a good cup of tea and breakfast. Started back from Royal camps towards Jaisalmer. This is the approach road for Royal camps, a little off-roading stretch of 300m or so:
Saw a few camel on the way, roaming around in open:
Reached Jaisalmer fort parking by 11 AM. We had booking in “Mud mirror guest house”, a cozy place inside the fort. As the car can’t go inside the narrow lanes in fort, we had to ask them for help with the luggage. They enthusiastically arranged for the luggage pickup on bike. It felt very welcoming. We left the car at fort parking here:
Walked up from parking to the guest house. The entire fort looks like a market from inside, with narrow lanes, and shops everywhere. And with people trying to sell a lot of things to you, it becomes a bit difficult to digest at the start. But then you ignore that up and start seeing true beauty of the golden fort. Though it’s more like a sandstone fort, but is lighted up in evening to look golden. Here are the lanes through which we walked up:
And tried a monochromatic one as well:
Mudmirror guest house is built where soldiers once used to stay. It gives a good view of the fort and also the view outside walls as well. We could see the small Jaisalmer boundaries and the vast desert.
We checked into the hotel and freshened up. The owner was more than happy sharing us the details of Jaisalmer’s history. I would really recommend this place to travellers.
The first attraction inside fort was Jain temple, which was right in front of hotel. It was good to see them, reminded of Ranakpur Jain temple.
Then went forward to see the fort palace. The building looks pretty good from outside:
But unfortunately isn’t in a very great condition from inside. It does offer a great city view:
Finished fort palace in an hour, and then had lunch in a nearby restaurant.
We then explored the remaining fort places inside, came out of it and then started walking through the narrow streets (and GPS navigation) to reach Patwaon ki haveli. GPS was important as otherwise you may get lost in lanes like this:
Patwaon ki Haveli is an old (and big) haveli, with many artifacts to see. It is well preserved, renovated ad maintained monument. It was good to see various sections of the haveli.
And from rooftop the haveli offers a great view of the fort:
Roamed around in the market area for quite some time. It was mostly small lanes like this one:
Came back and had a superb dinner in our hotel’s rooftop restaurant. It was amazing to see Jaisalmer lights, and then pitch dark desert from the top. Tomorrow we will visit Longewala and then start the drive back.