There are still a few places left on Earth to which travel involves movement not only through space but back in time. One of these places is on a camel's back heading out into the Thar Desert from Jaisalmer, a golden sandstone oasis in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Only in the current century has this walled city been accessible by any other means than camel.
Once it was a vital way station along the Silk Route. Camel caravans crisscrossed the lonely Thar Desert from places as distant as Egypt, Arabia, China, and Persia, and stopped in Jaisalmer to trade in opium, metals, and silks. In return for the safety of the town and the privilege of trade in its bazaar, they paid taxes to its rulers. Businessmen and traders from neighboring states settled here and the city enjoyed an age of artistic flowering and cosmopolitan splendor. But with the development of the ports of Bombay and Calcutta as commercial centers during the British Raj, Jaisalmer's brisk trade stagnated. The city shriveled as population plummeted from a high of 35,000 in 1815 to a meager 4,000 in 1940. Today, tourists making the journey to Jaisalmer to see the remarkable architecture and to go on camel safaris into the Thar Desert swell the city's population.
"The journey to Jaisalmer is no longer the adventure it used to be," writes N.K. Sharma in Jaisalmer, the official and only guidebook to the city. Now linked by road and, since 1964, by rail to the city of Jodhpur, Jaisalmer is, nevertheless, definitely off the beaten track. Still a rigorous day's journey from the convenient accommodations of airports and big hotels, it is a journey not lightly undertaken by tourists on a tight schedule. The trip requires time and a spirit of adventure, yet this city's isolation preserves its great charm.
Travel by road takes about six hours and the train trip is longer. Either way, for these who have recently crossed oceans and continents by jet and are planning a camel safari, the desert crossing is a kind of decompression chamber. The way is long, the going is slow, and the sights along the way are few--but memorable.
The train makes several stops where there are no visible signs of habitation--no town, no houses, no train station--but people, men and women in combinations of brilliant orange and yellow or peacock and vermilion, are waiting to board. Others disembark and trek straight into the barren desert, their bright clothing defying the blinding light until they become specks on the horizon.
The end of the line, the end of the road, the end of electrical power and telephone lines is Jaisalmer. Further west is only desert crisscrossed by camel trails and somewhere in the distance, the border between India and Pakistan. Jeep taxis wait at Jaisalmer station to transport visitors to the city.
Because the walled city is closed to vehicular traffic, taxis deposit visitors at the great gates of the city. From there travel is on foot through labyrinthine streets, cobbled in great hunks of sandstone. Should one's evening arrival coincide with a power outage, the sensation of passage into the fifteenth century will be complete. Narrow, winding streets, overhung with stone windows and second stories, twist and ascend through dark neighborhoods. Small windows cut through the thick house walls yield glimpses of images illuminated by flickering candles: a brilliant veil,
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