During the year end holidays, we went on a mega trip to Rajasthan and Gujarat covering Jaisalmer and Ahmedabad Cities. Way back in Oct 2025, I was watching a song from a Tamil movie and asked a friend which place it was. He said, the place is Jaisalmer and it is in Rajasthan. Out of curiosity, I started Googling for Jaisalmer and was awestruck on seeing the places. Immediately, I booked the onward flight tickets through Indigo. When I started looking for return tickets, I realized that they were nearly 40% higher than the onward tickets. So, I started looking for other places to see near Jaisalmer through an overnight train journey. Ahmedabad appeared to be a good place to go to from Jaisalmer. Moreover, the tickets from Ahmedabad to Chennai was half as that of the onward tickets. So, I booked the return tickets immediately from Ahmedabad to Chennai and the train tickets from Jaisalmer to Ahmedabad. That's how our trip was finalized.
We did have a couple of setbacks between Oct and Dec. Indigo had a flight cancellations fiasco, I had a health setback. So, we weren't sure until the last moment whether we would be going to Jaisalmer or not.
I had booked our stay in Jaisalmer in a place called Hotel Neeraj, which is very near the Jaisalmer Fort. We reached Jaisalmer in the evening on 25th Dec. I learned that there are only 2 or 3 flights to Jaisalmer on a given day. We booked a prepaid taxi which charged Rs.800 to drop us in Hotel Neeraj. We had the dinner on first day at Shree Krishna Restaurant, which was right opposite to Hotel Neeraj. They served great vegetarian food.
Day 1 (Places in 6 Km radius)
We got ready by 8.30 am and took an autorickshaw to see Bada Bagh, Gadisar Lake, Vyas Chhatri and Jaisalmer War Museum during the 1st half. If you saw Bada Bagh first, then you'll feel that Vyas Chhatri is nothing. In fact, you can even skip Vyas Chhatri, if you had seen Bada Bagh.
Gadisar Lake is closer to the city center. You can even spend 3+ hours in Gadisar Lake. We took a boat ride, had street food and fresh juices at Gadisar Lake. Fresh orange juices appeared very cheap in Rajasthan. There is also a market surrounding Gadisar Lake - you can buy all sorts of things there.
Later on, we went to Jaisalmer War Museum. We had our quick lunch at the cafe in the war museum. There was a long queue in the musuem to get tickets. We would've spent about an hour in the war museum. The museum is maintained very well. They do have a lot of other paid attractions and we didn't venture into them given the shortage of time. We returned back to hotel by around 2 pm or so. The autowallah charged Rs.2000 for this trip.
We took rest for sometime in the hotel, then, got ready and went to Gadisar Lake by walk (roughly, 1.6 Km) in the evening. We went to the puppet show near the lake. The charges for the puppet show were a little higher - Rs.200 per adult. I thought there will not be lots of attendees. To my surprise, there were at least some 25 - 30 people attending the show in the evening and there were a number of kids too. It was a good entertainment for about 45 mins.
After watching the puppet show, we went to Gadisar lake to watch the musical fountain show. However, by the time we reached Gadisar Lake, people started coming back from the show. It looks like the show starts sharp by 7 pm and we missed it.
We came back to the hotel, had fruits for dinner and wrapped up the day.
Day 2 - First Half (Visit to the Fort)
Our day 2 started with a visit to the "living" Jaisalmer Fort (Yes! There are still a large number of people living inside the fort and there are eateries, shops, temples etc., inside the fort). It was about 2 Kms walk to get into the fort from Hotel Neeraj. Though we reached the fort by 8.30 am, there were already several tourists roaming around within the fort. The fort glittered in golden color because of sunlight. No wonder, why Jaisalmer is called the Golden City. We visited Baa Ri Haveli (the Haveli's are the mansions. There are several mansions within the fort). There is a entry fee to visit the mansions. You get to see the luxurious lifestyle of the riches in Jaisalmer by visiting these mansions. We had our breakfast in a restaurant within the fort.
We also visited a couple of temples - Parsvanatha and Sambhavnath Jain temples. The statues / pillars etc., in these templates are very intricately carved. They are quite different from the temples that you would see in south India.
Finally, we visited the Jaisalmer Fort Palace Musuem. The entry fee was Rs.200. We spent nearly 1.5 hours within the musuem. It was very crowded as people were competing with each other to take pictures. Yes! There are several photo-op places within the palace. It is maintained really well.
We wrapped-up our visit to the Jaisalmer fort and returned back to the hotel by 2 pm or so. We finished our lunch at the Chanakyaa Restaurant in Hotel Neeraj. The food quality was great there. We took some rest till 3.30 pm.
Day 2 - Second Half (Visit to the Desert)
We had booked the Desert Safari, Dinner and Dance through Rajputna Cabs. We were taken in a private car to the RR Anantam Resorts in Sam Sam Sand Dunes. The same car took us to the desert. We had to wait for nearly 45 mins in the desert camp to get the jeep. The desert was not as clean as what we had imagined (at least the areas that we visited). There were 100s of camels and cameleers - continuously requesting you to take a camel ride in the desert.
Finally, we took the desert jeep ride - it lasted for only 15 mins or so - however, it was quite exciting. We spent the next 2 hours in the desert clicking pictures - especially with camels and sunset background. Later on, we were brought back to the resort. The dance performance started at around 7.30 pm and lasted till 9 pm. They kept serving snacks and tea during the dance show. The dance performance was good. We finished the dinner (The dinner quality was ok!) and started from RR Anantam using the same private car. We reached hotel by around 11 pm. The desert experience turned out to be very memorable.
Day 3 - Kuldhara Village
We had very little time on Day 3 as our train from Jaisalmer to Ahmedabad was at 3.30 pm. Moreover, we had to checkout from the hotel by 12 pm. We decided to just visit Kuldhara Village in the morning. We woke up a little late, had breakfast in Chanakyaa Restaurant, took an auto to visit Kuldhara Village. Kuldhara is a deserted village (there is an ancient folk tale why the villagers deserted the village overnight). There were several houses in a dilapidated condition in that village. There was also a temple in the middle of the village. We spent about 1.5 hours in that place - clicked some pictures and returned back to our hotel. The autowallah charged Rs.1000 for the trip. We checked out from the hotel at 12 pm and moved to the railway station. We got food from Dhanraj Ranmal Bhatia Sweet shop opposite to the railway station. This place serves delicious food for takeaway. We had the food in the station and departed to Ahmedabad by train.
And that's how our memorable trip to the Golden City of Jaisalmer ended.
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