In the remote westernmost corner of Rajasthan, a good 100km beyond its closest neighbour Pokaran,
JAISALMER is a desert town
par excellence , its sand-yellow ramparts rising out of the arid Thar like a vision from
Scheherazade . Put off by reports of rampant commercialism, many travellers never make the long detour out here, but in spite of all the souvenir shops, hotel touts and large tour groups, the town remains one of India's most enchanting destinations. Villagers from outlying settlements, dressed in dazzling red and orange
odinis or voluminous turbans, still outnumber foreigners in the bazaar, while the town's exquisite sandstone architecture is quite unlike anything else in India. Staring west at sunset time, when the palace, 99 bastions and delicately sculpted temple towers of the citadel are suffused with honey-coloured light, you'll see how Jaisalmer came to be known as the "Golden City".
Rawal Jaisal of the Bhatti clan founded the town in 1156 as a replacement for his less easily defensible capital at nearby Loduvra, 16km west. A brahmin hermit had told him Lord Krishna and Arjuna came here once, and that they'd prophesied a ruler would one day build a fort along the ridge, known at that time as Trikuta, "Triple-Peaked Hill". There were constant wars with the neighbouring Rajput states of Jodhpur and Bikaner until eventually, in 1294, Muslim invaders attacked and conquered Jaisalmer, inducing large-scale johar (voluntary death by sword and fire) by the warriors and their womenfolk. In the fourteenth century the Bhatti Rajputs retook the city, but provoked a second sacking when they challenged the Muslims at Ajmer. Relations with the Muslims improved, and in 1570 the ruler of Jaisalmer married one of his daughters to Akbar. From the seventeenth century the town prospered as a market centre for traders on the overland routes between India and Central Asia; the magnificent havelis of the merchants bear witness to those times. However, with the emergence of Bombay and Surat as major ports, overland trade diminished, and so did Jaisalmer's wealth. The financial problems were compounded by the usurious taxes imposed on merchants by a particularly greedy prime minister, Salim Singh Mehta , in the nineteenth century. Many of the wealthiest Jain families moved out as a result, while the royal family, who were also in debt to the Mehtas, lacked the funds to modernize Jaisalmer and reverse its decline. The death blow came with Partition, when its life-line trade route was severed by the new, highly sensitive Pakistani border.
Jaisalmer's location, however, gave it renewed strategic importance during the Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971, and it is now a major military outpost, with helicopters and jet aircraft roaring past the ramparts at intervals throughout the day. The area's other main source of income, of course, is tourism. Visitor numbers increased dramatically throughout the 1990s, partly as a result of the air-force base being cleared for civil traffic (which rendered it accessible to package-tour groups from the Delhi-Agra-Jaipur "Golden Triangle" trail), and partly because of the glowing reputation Jaisalmer earned over the preceding two decades as a backpackers' destination. The sign-board war that has spiralled with the booming camel safari and guesthouse business has transformed Jaisalmer almost beyond recognition. To recapture the feeling of remoteness and tranquility that once defined the town, you'll have to head into the depths of the desert by camel
