I find it ironic that the driest city in the country chooses to greet me with buffets of rain. As I step on to the single-platform Jaisalmer station, I gingerly roll my wheelie-baggage around large puddles and cross my fingers, hoping — somewhat selfishly — that this is a passing squall, and I am not confined to my hotel room for the rest of my heartbeat-of-a-trip. I learn that I have missed the worst of it, and that — in the words of my Kiwi neighbour at Garh Jaisal — “the night had been filled with tridents of lightning from the skies.” On walking up the stairway to the view from the roof, a small part of me is envious: it must have been a splendid scene — thunder, lightning and torrents of rain in this desert city.
The view, with or without forks of lightning, is undoubtedly the highlight of what Garh Jaisal has to offer. Located within one of 99 bastions of this 12th-century fortress, it commands a prepossessing view of the township to its south. How much the hotel was organically part of the fortress only sank in when I opened the curious cubbyhole-like windows in the bathroom to find that their walls were four metres thick and were, in all probability, used to aim cannons at invading marauders from across the desert.
The hotel, named after Jaisalmer’s founder Rawal Jaisal, is all of seven well-appointed rooms outfitted according to colour theme. (I stayed in the ‘Purple Sweet’ and, despite the initial snigger, was convinced as to the aptness of the moniker because of the luscious plum-hued décor of the room.) Every room boasts a jharokha where the guest can view the city and the wandering sun over a complimentary cup of chai. The idea is to give the guest a feel of what life is like within the fort, which is why the interiors had been minimally altered during renovation. The building belonged to a retainer of the erstwhile Maharaja of Jaisalmer and was snapped up when it went on the market a few years ago. The two galis leading up to the hotel are populated by the owner’s extended family, which, I suspect, contributes to the charming, unpretentious approach. I did elbow two cows aside and buy a paper cone of jamun from a sleepy urchin at the doorstep. Even the drainage system is true to the admirable water-conservationist aims of the fort’s original builders: on my way in I had to duck to avoid the terrace pipes sluicing every drop of precious rainwater into underground wells for later use.
In my perambulations around the fort I find that this is a very walker-friendly town. Even if you do get lost, the fort is small enough that you never blow way off course. Everything is just around the corner — the Jain temples, the palace and several restaurants are all mere yards from the hotel and the single main gate of the fort is a few steeply inclined minutes away. As I search for a place to grab some lunch (GarhJaisal offers a basic egg-cereal-fresh-fruit breakfast to order, and the cheerful staff is more than happy to order in lunch and dinner for the guests from any of the nearby restaurants), I walk into a small Tibetan café where the thukpa is worth the interminable wait. I also find that the tourism industry has taken a turn for the worse — Jaisalmer is nowhere near as crowded as it should be for this time of the year. The fort wears a slightly forlorn look in the late afternoon. Many of the lovely old havelis are crumbling due to lack of care and occupancy.
This is a pressing concern for the residents of Jaisalmer who depend to a very great extent on tourism revenues as their main source of income and also as a means to fund conservation efforts. Garh Jaisal, having teamed up with a Canadian hospitality group Eco-Res, is trying to independently preserve its corner of the fortress. I am told that the smiling Nepali boy who served my breakfast that morning also counts scaling the parapet wall to pick out trash that blows in during the night, among his many duties. Plans for expansion are on, however. Within a few months the hotel will introduce cooking demos where guests will learn how to cook authentic Rajasthani food — a cuisine that I found very underrepresented in the restaurants around the hotel. And perhaps on from there a village-themed resort a few miles out of the city. I wish them the best, and while I hope that trade rolls back on track, I am also thankful for having had a rain-washed Jaisalmer almost all to myself.
The information
Where: Garh Jaisal, in Fort, Kotri Para, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan
Accommodation: 7 rooms
Tariff: Rs 5,965 per room, including breakfast
Contact : 9414149304, www.garhjaisal.com