Rajasthan Desert Circuit — Jaipur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer & Jodhpur

Into Jaipur, laid out on a grid in 1727 and washed pink in 1876. The City Palace and the Jantar Mantar fill the afternoon — the latter is nineteen masonry instruments built in the 1730s, and standing inside the great sundial while it keeps time to a couple of seconds is a strange experience. Hawa Mahal, whose 953 windows were built in 1799 so the women of the court could watch the street unseen, is a short walk from both. · Jaipur · Private car

Amber early — the pre-Jaipur capital, begun in 1592, rising up the hillside in courtyards with the Sheesh Mahal's mirror work at the top. Then north-west into drier country, around six hours, as the fields give out and the Thar begins. Bikaner was founded in 1488 on a caravan route and its Junagarh fort, unusually, sits on the plain rather than a hill and was never taken in four centuries. The evening is free. · Jaipur to Bikaner · overnight Bikaner · Private car

Junagarh in the morning, whose interiors — the Anup Mahal in gold leaf, the Phool Mahal, the lacquered Badal Mahal — are better preserved than most in the state. The camel research centre outside town is the other Bikaner stop and is more interesting than it sounds: it is a working breeding and research station, and the camel milk is genuinely worth trying. Then west across the Thar, around 330 km and six hours, past Pokhran and the Ramdevra shrine, into Jaisalmer in the evening. · Bikaner to Jaisalmer · overnight Jaisalmer · Private car

Jaisalmer Fort was built in 1156 and around two thousand people still live inside it, which makes it one of a tiny number of inhabited forts anywhere — houses, shops and Jain temples within the walls, and the whole of it in a yellow sandstone that turns gold in the low sun. Patwon ki Haveli and Salim Singh ki Haveli in the town below are the great merchant houses, carved with a fineness that is hard to credit in stone. Gadisar lake in the late afternoon. · Jaisalmer · Private car

West to the dunes beyond Sam in the afternoon, and a night under canvas — camel or jeep out onto the sand for the sunset, dinner and Rajasthani folk music at the camp, and the desert sky afterwards, which away from the town is worth staying up for. Camps here range widely in standard and the itinerary uses established ones; what none of them is, is silent — this is a popular stretch of desert and the camps sit within earshot of each other. · Jaisalmer desert camp · overnight Desert camp · Private car

East out of the Thar, around 285 km and five hours, with the landscape slowly recovering scrub and then fields. Into Jodhpur in the afternoon, where Mehrangarh stands 120 m above the old city on a rock — begun in 1459, never taken by siege, the cannonball marks of 1808 still in the gate, and a museum of palanquins, howdahs and miniature painting inside. Jaswant Thada, a marble cenotaph of 1899, sits just below it and is the better sunset. · Jaisalmer to Jodhpur · overnight Jodhpur · Private car

A free morning. The Sardar Market clock tower and the lanes of the blue city below the fort are the obvious walk, and the spice and textile stalls there are a working market rather than a tourist one. Umaid Bhawan, the art deco palace on the hill east of the city, was finished in 1943 and part of it is open as a museum. Jodhpur airport is close to the centre, so a midday flight is comfortable. · Jodhpur · overnight — · Private car