Rajasthan Festival Tour: Jaisalmer Desert Festival

A representative of Payless Tours India meets you at Indira Gandhi International Airport or at your Delhi hotel, holding a name board, and helps you into your private car. If your flight lands early, you can rest for a few hours before the afternoon programme begins. During the drive into the city, your driver will brief you on the route ahead, the long road to Bikaner the next morning and the festival plan for Jaisalmer. You will also receive a printed itinerary, local contact numbers and a short note on what to wear for the desert, where February days are warm and sunny but nights on the dunes can drop close to five degrees Celsius.

In the afternoon your guide takes you to Old Delhi, the walled city built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the 1640s. You start at Jama Masjid, one of the largest mosques in India, where the courtyard holds around 25,000 worshippers and the southern minaret gives a view over the rooftops of Chandni Chowk. A cycle rickshaw then carries you through the narrow lanes of the spice market at Khari Baoli, where sacks of dried chillies, turmeric and cardamom are stacked to the ceiling. Your guide will point out the Red Fort from the outside; note that the fort is closed to visitors every Monday, so on that day the stop is a photo halt only.

Later you move to New Delhi for a slower look at India Gate and the long avenue of Kartavya Path leading to the President's House. If time and traffic allow, the last stop is Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, a Sikh temple where volunteers serve free meals to thousands of visitors every day in the community kitchen, and where you are welcome to watch the rotis being made by hand. Heads must be covered and shoes removed, and the temple provides scarves. You return to your hotel in the early evening for dinner and an early night, as the drive to Bikaner starts soon after breakfast. Overnight stay in Delhi.

This is the longest driving day of the trip, so your driver collects you around 7 am. The first stretch leaves the Delhi suburbs behind and heads west into Haryana and the semi-desert of northern Rajasthan. After about five to six hours you reach Mandawa, a small town in the Shekhawati region that grew rich in the nineteenth century on trade between the ports of Gujarat and Central Asia. Local merchant families spent that money on large painted havelis, and the walls of the town still carry hundreds of frescoes showing gods, battles, trains, motor cars and even early aeroplanes, painted by artists who had never seen them in person.

A local guide walks you through a few of the best-preserved havelis, such as the Gulab Rai Ladia and Murmuria havelis, and explains how the colours were made from natural pigments, indigo, lime and red ochre. Many of these houses are now looked after by a single caretaker while the owning families live in Mumbai or Kolkata, so you will often be shown around by someone whose grandfather worked for the household. Lunch can be taken at one of the heritage hotels in Mandawa, many of them set inside old forts or havelis, before you get back on the road for the second half of the drive.

The final stretch to Bikaner covers around 190 kilometres and four hours through flat, sandy farmland where you start to see camel carts, khejri trees and herds of goats moving along the roadside. The landscape becomes noticeably drier as you near the city, which sits on the northern edge of the Thar Desert. You will reach Bikaner by early evening and check in at your hotel. If you still have energy, ask your driver to drop you in the old market near Kote Gate, where shops sell bhujia, the crisp gram-flour snack the city is famous for across India. Overnight stay in Bikaner.

After breakfast your guide takes you to Junagarh Fort, built between 1589 and 1594 by Raja Rai Singh, a general in the army of the Mughal emperor Akbar. Unlike most Rajasthan forts, it stands on flat ground rather than a hilltop, and it is famous for never having been taken by an enemy. Inside the walls are palaces added by later rulers, including the Anup Mahal with its red and gold lacquer work and the Badal Mahal, painted with blue clouds to remind a desert king of the monsoon. The fort museum displays a First World War biplane gifted to Maharaja Ganga Singh, along with weapons, palanquins and royal costumes.

Around late morning you leave Bikaner for Jaisalmer, a drive of five and a half to six hours through the heart of the Thar. The road passes through Kolayat, a pilgrimage town with a lake and bathing ghats, and then Pokaran, known in India as the site of the country's nuclear tests and also home to a small sandstone fort. Your driver can stop for lunch at a roadside dhaba where you can try dal, bajra roti and buttermilk. In February the desert is green in patches after the winter rains, and you may spot desert foxes, chinkara gazelles or the occasional peacock near the villages.

You arrive in Jaisalmer in the early evening as the low sun turns the walls of the fort a deep yellow gold, which is why it is called the Golden City. During festival week the town is decorated with lights, flags and painted gates, and street stalls sell turbans, leather camel saddles and mirror-work textiles. After check-in, your Jaisalmer guide meets you at the hotel to go through the festival programme for the next three days, explain where the procession will pass and suggest the best spots for photographs. Dinner is free to arrange; several rooftop restaurants face the illuminated fort. Overnight stay in Jaisalmer.

The festival begins in the morning with a grand procession that usually sets off from the area around Jaisalmer Fort and Gadisar Lake and winds through town towards the main festival stadium. Your guide will take you to your viewing spot early, as the crowds build quickly. Camels decorated with silver jewellery, coloured tassels and embroidered blankets lead the way, followed by folk dancers, musicians, women balancing brass pots on their heads and riders from the Border Security Force camel corps. Local people and visitors line the streets and rooftops, and the mood is loud, friendly and very photogenic, so keep a spare camera battery in your bag.

Once the procession reaches the stadium, the competitions begin. The best known is the Mr Desert contest, in which local men in full Rajasthani dress are judged on their moustache, turban, bearing and knowledge of desert culture; the title is a matter of real pride, and some winners return year after year. You will also see the moustache contest, where men compare length and shape, and the turban-tying race, in which foreign visitors are often invited to take part. Your guide will translate the announcements and explain the meaning of different turban colours and styles across Rajasthan, which change with caste, region and occasion.

The afternoon is free to rest at the hotel or walk around the decorated bazaars below the fort, where you can buy camel-leather sandals, block-printed fabrics and small brass bells. In the evening the festival continues with a cultural programme of folk dance and music at the main venue. You may see the Kalbelia snake-charmer dance, with its spinning black skirts, and the Gair dance from the Marwar region, performed by men with wooden sticks. Schedules can change slightly from year to year, so your guide will confirm timings each morning. Overnight stay in Jaisalmer.

The morning is kept for Jaisalmer itself, while the festival takes a slower start. Your guide walks you up into Jaisalmer Fort, built in 1156 by Rawal Jaisal on Trikuta Hill. It is one of the very few forts in the world where people still live, with around 3,000 residents running shops, guesthouses and temples inside the walls. You visit the Raj Mahal, the former royal palace, and the group of Jain temples built between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, carved from the same yellow sandstone as the rest of the fort. From the ramparts, the cannon points look out over the flat roofs of the town to the desert beyond.

Below the fort, you walk through the lanes to Patwon ki Haveli, a cluster of five mansions built in the early nineteenth century by a family of brocade and opium traders. The facade is covered in latticed balconies and window screens cut so finely that the stone looks like wood. One of the five houses is now a museum with original furniture and painted ceilings. You also stop at Salim Singh ki Haveli, the home of a powerful prime minister whose upper storey curves outward like the prow of a ship. Before lunch, there is time for a short visit to Gadisar Lake, an old reservoir lined with small shrines and an arched gateway.

In the afternoon you return to the festival grounds for the camel events. Camel polo is played much like horse polo, but slower and with a lot more noise from the crowd, as players swing long mallets from high saddles. Teams from the Border Security Force often display camel acrobatics and a camel tattoo show, where the animals dance in time to drums. There may also be a tug of war between locals and visitors, a turban-tying round for women, and the Mrs Moomal contest for local women. In the evening, folk performers take the stage again, with the full moon now almost round above the fort. Overnight stay in Jaisalmer.

After a relaxed breakfast you check out of your hotel and drive west to the Sam sand dunes, around 42 kilometres from town on the road towards the Pakistan border. On the way, your guide stops at Kuldhara, a village abandoned around 1825 by its Paliwal Brahmin families, who left overnight according to local legend. The stone houses, temple and lanes still stand in neat rows, and your guide will explain the different theories behind the departure, from a cruel minister's demands to water shortages. You then continue to your tented camp near the dunes, check in to a canvas tent with an attached bathroom and have lunch at the camp.

The final day of the festival moves out to the dunes. In the afternoon you attend events such as camel races, where riders push their animals across the sand at surprising speed, and camel-mounted displays by the Border Security Force. Your camp also arranges a short camel ride over the ridges, timed so that you reach the top of a dune just before sunset. From up there the sand runs in long waves towards the horizon, and in festival week the scene is full of decorated camels, families picnicking and photographers waiting for the light to drop behind the dunes.

As darkness falls, the full moon of Magh Purnima rises over the desert and the festival closes with a folk concert on the dunes. Musicians from the Manganiyar and Langa communities, hereditary performers who have sung for desert patrons for generations, play the kamaicha, sarangi, dholak and khartal while singing ballads of love, war and local saints. Kalbelia dancers and fire performers often join them. After the concert you return to camp for a buffet dinner of Rajasthani dishes, including ker sangri and bajra roti, with a campfire and more music outside the tents. Overnight stay in the Sam desert camp.

Wake up early if you can to see the sunrise from the dunes behind the camp, when the air is cold and still and the sand shows the tracks of beetles and foxes from the night. After breakfast you leave Sam around 7.30 am for the drive east to Jodhpur, passing back through Jaisalmer and then along the highway through Pokaran and Balesar. The road is smooth and lightly travelled, with occasional stops for tea and photographs of the windmills and solar farms that now cover parts of the Thar. Jodhpur comes into view by early afternoon, and the rest of the day starts with hotel check-in.

After a short rest, your Jodhpur guide takes you up to Mehrangarh Fort, which rises around 120 metres above the city on a sheer rock outcrop. Founded in 1459 by Rao Jodha, the fort contains a series of palaces, including the Moti Mahal, where the ruler held court, and the Phool Mahal, with its gold-painted ceiling. The museum holds one of the best collections in Rajasthan, with royal palanquins, elephant howdahs, miniature paintings and armour. From the ramparts you can look down on the old city, where many of the houses are painted blue, a tradition linked to Brahmin families and to keeping houses cool.

On the way down, you stop at Jaswant Thada, a white marble memorial built in 1899 for Maharaja Jaswant Singh II, set beside a small lake with views back up to the fort. In the late afternoon, your guide walks you through Sardar Market around the Clock Tower, where traders sell spices, bangles, dried fruit and textiles from carts and tiny shops. Jodhpur is known for its makhaniya lassi, a thick saffron yoghurt drink, and for mirchi vada, a large green chilli stuffed with spiced potato and fried in batter, both worth trying here. Overnight stay in Jodhpur.

After breakfast you leave Jodhpur and drive south into the Aravalli Hills, where the land changes from dry scrub to rocky slopes, small farms and lakes. The first part of the drive takes about three hours, and your driver can stop at a roadside tea stall in one of the villages along the way. Around midday you reach Ranakpur, a quiet valley holding one of the most important Jain temples in India. The main temple, dedicated to Adinath, the first Jain tirthankara, was built in the fifteenth century under the patronage of a local merchant, Dharna Shah, and the ruler of Mewar, Rana Kumbha.

The temple is built entirely of white marble and stands on a raised platform with four entrances, one facing each direction. Inside, 1,444 carved pillars support the domes and halls, and the guide will tell you that no two pillars have the same design. The ceilings are carved with lotus patterns, dancing figures and a famous single marble panel showing a serpent with many coiled heads. Leather items such as belts and bags must be left outside, and shorts are not allowed. Non-Jain visitors are usually allowed in from midday, which suits the timing of this drive. A simple vegetarian lunch can be taken at the temple dining hall or a nearby hotel.

After lunch you continue for around two and a half hours through winding hill roads to Udaipur, the City of Lakes, built by Maharana Udai Singh II in 1559 after the fall of Chittorgarh. You arrive in the late afternoon and check in at your hotel, where many rooms and rooftops face the water. If you would like to stretch your legs, take an evening walk around Gangaur Ghat on the edge of Lake Pichola, where local people gather in the evening and the palaces on the water start to light up. Overnight stay in Udaipur.

Your Udaipur guide meets you after breakfast for a full day in the city. The first stop is the City Palace, the largest palace complex in Rajasthan, built over nearly four centuries by successive Maharanas of Mewar. It stretches for more than 240 metres along the eastern bank of Lake Pichola, and parts of it are still lived in by the royal family. Inside you walk through the Mor Chowk, the peacock courtyard decorated with glass mosaics, and the Zenana Mahal, the former women's quarters. Your guide will tell the story of Maharana Pratap, who fought the Mughals at the Battle of Haldighati in 1576 and refused to surrender.

Next you walk a few minutes to Jagdish Temple, an Indo-Aryan temple built in 1651 and dedicated to Lord Vishnu, with carved elephants along the plinth and a large bronze figure of Garuda facing the shrine. After lunch, you drive to Saheliyon ki Bari, the Garden of the Maidens, laid out for royal ladies in the eighteenth century, with fountains, lotus pools and marble elephants. Your guide will also take you along the shores of Fateh Sagar Lake, a larger reservoir to the north where local families gather in the evening for snacks and boat rides.

Late in the afternoon you take a boat ride on Lake Pichola, which can be booked at the jetty near the City Palace. The boat passes the bathing ghats of the old city, the white Lake Palace hotel on its island and the Jag Mandir, where the young Shah Jahan is said to have sheltered in the 1620s. As the light fades, the palaces turn a soft orange. In the evening you can attend the Dharohar folk dance show at Bagore ki Haveli, a lakeside mansion where the dances of Rajasthan are performed every evening, including the famous pot-balancing dance. Overnight stay in Udaipur.

After breakfast you leave Udaipur for Jaipur, a drive of six and a half to seven hours on the national highway through the farmland of Mewar and central Rajasthan. The route passes near Chittorgarh and through Bhilwara, a textile town, and Kishangarh, known for its marble trade and the delicate Kishangarh school of miniature painting. Your driver will plan tea and lunch stops at clean highway restaurants. This is a good day to rest after the festival and the sightseeing of the past week, sort your photographs and catch up on sleep in the back seat while the landscape rolls by.

You reach Jaipur in the late afternoon. The capital of Rajasthan was founded in 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, a ruler with a strong interest in astronomy and town planning, and it was one of the first cities in India built on a grid of wide straight streets. The old city was painted terracotta pink in 1876 to welcome the Prince of Wales, and the colour has been kept ever since by local law. After check-in, your driver can take you for an early evening drive past the illuminated walls and gates of the old city, including Ajmeri Gate and Sanganeri Gate.

For dinner, Jaipur has plenty of choice. Chokhi Dhani, a village-style resort on the edge of the city, offers a Rajasthani meal served on leaf plates with folk dancers, puppet shows and camel rides, and is popular with families. If you would prefer something quieter, the rooftop restaurants near Hawa Mahal and in the C-Scheme area serve North Indian food with city views. Your guide will meet you the next morning, so an early night is a good idea before the busiest sightseeing day in Jaipur. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

Your Jaipur guide collects you early and drives eleven kilometres north to Amber Fort, the former capital of the Kachhwaha rulers before Jaipur was built. The fort is built of pale yellow sandstone and white marble on a ridge above Maota Lake, and the morning light shows off its walls and gateways. You walk up through Suraj Pol, the Sun Gate, into the Jaleb Chowk courtyard, then on to the Diwan-i-Am with its double row of columns. The most famous room is the Sheesh Mahal, the Mirror Palace, where tiny pieces of glass inlaid in the walls and ceiling sparkle with any light. On the way back, stop beside Man Sagar Lake to photograph Jal Mahal.

Back in the old city, the next stop is Hawa Mahal, the Palace of Winds, built in 1799 by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh. The five-storey facade has 953 small windows that allowed the ladies of the court to watch processions in the street below without being seen, much like the crowds you watched in Jaisalmer. You then visit the City Palace, where the museum shows royal textiles, weapons and the two enormous silver jars used to carry Ganges water to England in 1902. Next door is Jantar Mantar, a UNESCO-listed observatory whose giant stone sundial can tell the local time to within two seconds.

In the afternoon you have free time for shopping in the old bazaars. Johari Bazaar is the place for silver and gemstone jewellery, Bapu Bazaar for leather slippers and printed cotton, and Tripolia Bazaar for brass and lac bangles. Your guide can take you to a block-printing workshop or a carpet-weaving unit where you can watch the craft in action. In the evening, you might visit Birla Mandir, a white marble temple that looks its best when lit up after sunset. This is your last night in Rajasthan, so a farewell dinner at a heritage hotel restaurant is a fine way to end the trip. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

After breakfast you check out of your hotel and drive back to Delhi, a journey of around five to six hours with a stop for tea on the way. Your driver will take you to your Delhi hotel or straight to Indira Gandhi International Airport in time for your onward flight, so please share your flight details when booking. This ends your Jaisalmer desert festival tour with Payless Tours India.