Our train reached Jodhpur about half an hour late. The morning as expected was cold accompanied by a chilly breeze. At the exit of the station we were welcomed by our cab driver Devendra who would be with us for the entire trip. As per our itinerary we were to head straight to the Golden City of Jaisalmer.
Jodhpur to Jaisalmer is a stretch of around 250 kilometers on a two lane state highway. You get out of the limits of city of Jodhpur within a few minutes. The landscape on the way is a prelude to the Great Thar Desert. The arid land on either side of the road is sprinkled with thorny shrubs and bushes. The human settlements were far and few in between as we notched up the miles. It was clear that we were in a land where only the toughest can survive. Tourism and quarrying of stones are the main sources of livelihood of people here, the driver explained. On the way you will find some resorts which offer stay along with some activities like camel rides and Rajasthani folk music. We stopped at one such resort called Dehra Fort for breakfast. It was built like a small fort in red as the name suggested. Right in the middle of nowhere, this place offered solitude and calm which you seldom get anywhere now. You could actually hear the hissing of winds and chirping of birds. Every now and then the silence was broken with a vehicle passing by. In our daily humdrum of urban existence we seem to have forgotten the feeling of peacefulness which comes to us by being amidst nature. The heavy breakfast got us going for the remaining part of our road trip. As we approached Jaisalmer the frequency of army trucks increased, a reminder that we were getting closer to the border of our country. I was surprised to see fields of bright yellow mustard as our movies have made them synonymous with another part of our country.

We reached Jaisalmer after a drive of around 5 hours. We were greeted by the sight of sun shining over the city built from yellow sandstone, giving it a golden hue. We found our hotel “Jaisalmer Palace” with some guidance from the locals. It stood in one of the tiny lanes just off the fort road. The site of magnificent fort of Jaisalmer which rose above this isolated desert town filled us with excitement about things in store for us.