Desert Kingdoms of Rajasthan

West of the Aravallis the land dries out and the architecture gets stranger. Bikaner’s red Dulmera sandstone, Jaisalmer’s yellow limestone city rising whole from the sand, Jodhpur’s blue quarter under a fort you cannot…

Length: 12 days, 11 nights
From: ₹2,95,000 per person
Pace: Balanced
Stops: 7
Best months: October to March

The route

7 stops over 12 days

Delhi
Mandawa
Bikaner
Jaisalmer
Jodhpur
Ranakpur
Udaipur

Jaisalmer fort at dawn, still lived in by thousands
Blue lanes below Mehrangarh, and a makhaniya lassi
Twenty thousand rats at the Karni Mata temple, Deshnoke
Kuldhara, abandoned overnight in 1825 and never resettled
Ranakpur’s 1,444 marble pillars, no two carved alike

Day by day

What actually happens

Length: 12 days
Stops: 7
Pace: Balanced
From: ₹2,95,000

1D

Delhi

Arrival in Delhi

Your flight lands, the formalities take twenty minutes, and a Tripfizz representative is waiting past customs with your name on a board. Today asks nothing. Sleep, then take a chair on the lawn at six with a lime soda while the kites turn overhead. Your journey director joins you at seven to walk through the twelve days ahead.

Night: The Oberoi, New Delhi
2B

Delhi

Qutb Minar and the spice market

Start at the Qutb Minar, seventy-three metres of fluted red sandstone begun in 1193, and the iron pillar beside it that has not rusted in sixteen centuries. Walk on into Mehrauli’s ruins, which almost nobody does. Afternoon in Old Delhi for the spice market at Khari Baoli, the pepper dust will make you sneeze, and kebabs at Karim’s.

Night: The Oberoi, New Delhi
3B D

Mandawa

Into the painted towns

Out through Gurgaon and onto the Jaipur road, then north-west at Behror. Shekhawati is one enormous open-air gallery: some two thousand painted havelis in a district nobody hurries through. In Mandawa you look at the Hanuman Prasad Goenka haveli, the double courtyard, the cobalt ground from imported German pigment. Dinner in the courtyard under a khejri tree.

Night: Mandawa Haveli
4B D

Bikaner

Junagarh Fort and Deshnoke

Five hours west, the fields giving way to sand and khejri. Bikaner is built of Dulmera sandstone, which is the colour of raw meat at noon and rose at six. Junagarh Fort has never been taken; its Karan Mahal is lacquer, mirror and gold leaf. At Deshnoke, thirty kilometres south, twenty thousand rats are fed at Karni Mata’s temple. Bhujia for tea.

Night: Narendra Bhawan, Bikaner
5B D

Jaisalmer

Camels, then the golden city

First the camel breeding farm on the Jorbeer road: four breeds, some four hundred animals, and camel-milk kulfi before ten in the morning. Then 330 kilometres south-west on straight road, past Pokaran’s fort and the ochre salt flats. Jaisalmer shows itself twenty minutes out, yellow Jurassic limestone, ninety-nine bastions, a fort three thousand people still live inside.

Night: Suryagarh, Jaisalmer
6B

Jaisalmer

Inside the living fort

Into the fort on foot at eight, up through the four gates, along lanes barely wide enough for a cow. The Jain temples of Parsvanath and Chandraprabhu are carved so finely the stone looks knitted. Down to Patwon ki Haveli, five mansions for five brothers, brocade money, then Gadisar tank at five, and the cenotaphs at Bada Bagh as the sun drops behind the wind farm.

Night: Suryagarh, Jaisalmer
7B D

Jaisalmer

Kuldhara, the Desert Park and Sam

Kuldhara at seven, an entire Paliwal Brahmin village abandoned in one night in 1825 and never resettled; the door frames still stand. Mid-morning in the Desert National Park, looking for great Indian bustard, fewer than 150 left in the wild, and chinkara. The afternoon is free. At five, camels to the Sam dunes, and dinner back at the hotel.

Night: Suryagarh, Jaisalmer
8B

Jodhpur

Osian temples, then the blue city

East across the Thar, five hours, with a stop at Osian where sixteen sandstone temples from the eighth century sit half-buried in dune. You arrive in Jodhpur in time to climb to the ramparts before dark. Mehrangarh sits 120 metres above the old city on a rock the Rathores took in 1459, and the blue below it is copper sulphate and indigo wash.

Night: RAAS Jodhpur
9B

Jodhpur

Mehrangarh, Jaswant Thada, blue lanes

A full morning in Mehrangarh: the palanquins, the Phool Mahal, the handprints of Man Singh’s widows at the Loha Pol. Jaswant Thada afterwards, thin marble that glows when lit from behind. Then the blue lanes of Navchokiya on foot, a makhaniya lassi at Shri Mishrilal, and mirchi vada at Sardar Market under the clock tower.

Night: RAAS Jodhpur
10B L

Ranakpur and Udaipur

Ranakpur’s pillars, down to Udaipur

South into the Aravallis. Ranakpur’s Chaumukha temple, begun in 1446, has 1,444 marble pillars and no two carved alike; the light moves through it all morning. Lunch at the temple guesthouse, then down to Udaipur by four. Your first view of Pichola is best taken from a terrace with a glass of something cold and no commentary.

Night: The Leela Palace Udaipur
11B

Udaipur

City Palace and a boat on Pichola

The City Palace opens at half nine: eleven palaces, four hundred years, granite and marble on a ridge above the lake. Then Jagdish Temple’s black stone Vishnu, and the miniature painters at Bagore ki Haveli who still grind their own pigments and set squirrel-hair brushes. A boat at five past Jag Mandir, where Shah Jahan hid as a rebel prince.

Night: The Leela Palace Udaipur
12B

Udaipur to Delhi

Departure

Breakfast on the terrace, then the short run to Maharana Pratap airport at Dabok for the hop to Delhi, where our team meets you again and walks you to the international terminal. If your flight is overnight, we hold a day room in Delhi. Twelve days, six towns, and about 1,800 kilometres of Rajasthan behind you. You fly home.

Night: Day room in Delhi, on request