One desert, two states, the same embroidery
On a map, Rajasthan and Kutch look like separate worlds, one of forts and one of salt. On the ground they are one country, and this is a journey from palaces to people.
One desert: the Thar runs south through Jaisalmer and Barmer until it meets the Great Rann, a salt marsh so flat it disappears into the sky.
Cousins on both sides: the Rabari herders in white and black, the Meghwal embroiderers, the Muslim pastoral families and the Rajput clans.
- The land
- The Thar runs south into the Great Rann
- Kutch rulers
- Jadeja Rajputs, titled Rao
- Old capital
- Bhuj
- Old trade
- By sea, Arabia and East Africa
- Earthquake
- 26 January 2001
- Free movement: for centuries many of them moved between the Thar, Kutch and Sindh with their herds.
- Follow the cloth: in Jaipur the block printers of Bagru and Sanganer stamp cotton with carved wooden blocks.
- Jodhpur: women pinch thousands of tiny knots into bandhani.
- Barmer: village women cut and stitch bold appliqué and dense mirror embroidery, and men of the herding communities once wore ajrakh, a resist-printed cloth in indigo and madder red.
- Kutch: ajrakh printed at Ajrakhpur, rogan painted with castor-oil paste at Nirona, and embroidery so particular that a woman's skirt can tell you her community and her village.
- A kingdom of its own: Kutch was ruled from Bhuj by the Jadeja Rajputs, whose title was Rao rather than Maharaja, and it traded by sea with Arabia and East Africa.
- 26 January 2001: on that morning a great earthquake struck Kutch, and much of old Bhuj was lost.
- The rebuilding: one of the most moving stories in western India. The craft villages that survived in their round mud houses are among the warmest places we know.
- The direction of travel: from our own city, among the forts and bazaars, steadily west and south through Jodhpur and Jaisalmer to the villages and the salt.
- The shared history: our journal piece on Rajasthan and Kutch tells more.
Day by day, from Jaipur to the salt
- Nights
- Fourteen nights, fifteen days
- Pace
- Three long drives, each with a soft landing
- Best months
- November to February
- Good for
- Textile lovers, photographers, return visitors
- Starts
- Jaipur, by air or road from Delhi
- Ends
- Bhuj airport, or Ahmedabad by road
Days 1 to 3: Jaipur
Arrival: in Jaipur, by air or by road from Delhi, and rest in a palace hotel.
Amber at first light: Amber Fort before the crowds.
- The afternoon: the City Palace, where the royal family still lives, and the Jantar Mantar, Sawai Jai Singh II's observatory.
- At dusk: walk the walled city's bazaars with a guide from the old lanes.
- Day three, the textile thread begins: the block printers of Bagru print by hand with natural dyes, and you can try a block yourself.
- The craft explained: our block printing in Bagru page.
- Last evening: a quiet afternoon and dinner in the city that is our home.
Days 4 and 5: Jodhpur
The drive: about five to six hours west, with a stop for lunch on the way. Our Jaipur to Jodhpur route has the stops.
First evening: walk up to Jaswant Thada as the marble glows in the late light.
- Day five, Mehrangarh at opening: Mehrangarh, then down through Brahmpuri, the bluest quarter of the old city, to the clock tower.
- Bandhani: in a workshop, women still tie the cloth with a fingernail grown long for the purpose.
- Salawas: the durrie weavers, half an hour south of the city.
- Hand-tied or printed: our guide to leheriya and bandhani shows you how to tell.
Days 6 and 7: Jaisalmer
The drive: about five hours west into the Thar, past Pokaran and the scrub country.
Late afternoon: arrive as Jaisalmer Fort turns gold, and watch its lights come on from Vyas Chhatri.
- Day seven at sunrise: Gadisar Lake.
- The fort as it wakes: the Jain temples during morning worship, and tea in a courtyard with a family our guide has known for years.
- Late afternoon: the haveli lanes to Patwon ki Haveli.
- Evening music: with Manganiyar musicians, the hereditary singers of the desert, whose cousins live on both sides of the border.
Day 8: Khuri and the dunes
Kuldhara on the way: leave Jaisalmer in the late morning, stopping at the abandoned Paliwal village of Kuldhara.
- Khuri: about an hour south-west of town, its dunes lie in long, gentle ridges with far fewer camps than Sam.
- Sunset: we walk you out onto the nearest high ground, away from any camp.
- Dinner: by a fire under a sky full of stars.
Day 9: Barmer and the women's work
The drive: after a dawn walk on the sand, back past Jaisalmer and south through the desert to Barmer, about four hours in all.
The afternoon: with a group of artisans in their village, seeing appliqué and embroidery in progress.
- Buying: directly from the women, or through the long-established cooperatives that sell their work.
- Kiradu in the last light: the Kiradu temples, about 35 kilometres west, whose carved walls of the eleventh and twelfth centuries belong to the same Maru-Gurjara tradition as Ranakpur.
- Honestly: Barmer has no hotel we would call luxurious. We arrange a clean, comfortable local stay for this one night, because the morning's drive is easier from here.
Day 10: Into Gujarat and the Little Rann
The longest day: six to seven hours by road, south-east out of the Thar and into Gujarat around the edge of the Rann.
How we do it: we leave early, carry a picnic and good music, and stop for chai and lunch.
- Carry your passport: these are border districts, and checks are routine.
- Afternoon arrival: at a camp on the edge of the Little Rann, and rest.
- The khur: in the last light, with a naturalist, look for the Indian wild ass, which survives nowhere else in the world.
- Other wildlife: blackbuck, desert foxes and, in winter, cranes, flamingos and pelicans on the shallow water.
Days 11 and 12: Bhuj and the craft villages
A dawn drive: on the Little Rann, when the wild ass graze in the mist.
On to Bhuj: about five hours west, to the old capital of the Jadeja Raos.
- The palaces: after a rest, the Aina Mahal, the eighteenth-century hall of mirrors built for Rao Lakhpatji, and the Gothic Prag Mahal beside it.
- Dusk: at the royal chhatris.
- Day twelve, the makers: the Vankar weavers of Bhujodi at their pit looms, and the ajrakh printers of Ajrakhpur, who moved there after the earthquake.
- Shrujan: the Living and Learning Design Centre it founded is a superb museum of Kutch embroidery.
- Smritivan: in the afternoon, the memorial to the people who died in 2001. Many guests say it changed the way they saw the rest of Kutch.
Days 13 and 14: The White Rann at Dhordo
Across the Banni: stop at Nirona for the rogan painters, copper bell makers and lacquer turners.
Hodka: lunch and a walk with an embroidery family.
- Bhirandiyara: for its famous mawa, a sweet of slowly reduced buffalo milk.
- Dhordo for sunset: about two hours from Bhuj without the stops, when the salt turns pink, lilac and then deep blue and the horizon disappears.
- Day fourteen: sleep late, then visit the potters of Khavda.
- Kala Dungar: drive up the black hill in the late afternoon for the view across the whole Rann, and stay to see the priests feed the jackals at the summit temple.
- After dark: back to the salt. If the moon is full, walk out for an hour of silence so complete you can hear your own heartbeat.
Day 15: Home
Sunrise on the salt: one last time.
- Flying home: about two hours to Bhuj Airport for a flight to Mumbai and on.
- Or by road: six to seven hours to Ahmedabad for its wider connections. We plan the last day around your flight.
The long roads, and why we drive them
Leaving Jaipur: the land is green with mustard and wheat in winter.
By Jodhpur: scrub, and the lone khejri trees the desert depends on.
West of Jodhpur: the villages thin out and the houses turn to mud and thatch.
- Jaipur to Jodhpur
- 5 to 6 hours
- Jodhpur to Jaisalmer
- About 5 hours
- Jaisalmer to Khuri
- About an hour
- Khuri to Barmer
- About 4 hours
- Barmer to Little Rann
- 6 to 7 hours
- Bhuj to Ahmedabad
- 6 to 7 hours
- South of Jaisalmer: towards Barmer the turbans change shape, the women's skirts grow heavier with mirrors, and the round huts of the Thar begin to look like the bhungas of Banni.
- The Rann: for a long stretch there is nothing but a flat, pale horizon and the occasional line of camels.
- Timed for daylight: each drive starts after something worth seeing and ends before dark.
- The car: quiet, cool and stocked with water and snacks.
- The driver: knows which dhaba makes fresh rotis and which village has a well-kept temple to stretch your legs.
- Too long on the day: we change the plan. Nobody should arrive in Kutch exhausted.
The crafts you will meet, and how to buy them
Makers, never showrooms: we never take you to the commission showrooms some drivers favour.
Bagru and Jodhpur: you buy from the printing and tie-dye families themselves.
Barmer: the money goes through the women's groups and cooperatives that supply their materials and pay them fairly.
- Kutch: most villages sell directly, and the money goes straight to the family whose name is on the work.
- Block print in Bagru: hand-carved wooden blocks and natural dyes on cotton, near Jaipur.
- Bandhani and leheriya in Jodhpur: tie-dye of tiny knots, and the wave pattern of the monsoon.
- Appliqué and mirror embroidery in Barmer: bedspreads, quilts and wedding canopies cut and stitched by hand.
- Ajrakh at Ajrakhpur: resist-printed cloth in indigo and madder red, made in many stages of printing and washing.
- Rogan at Nirona: castor-oil paste drawn onto cloth with a metal stylus, practised by only a few Khatri families.
- Bhujodi and Banni: shawls from pit looms, and the stitches that tell a woman's community.
- Read more: our shopping guide explains how to tell handwork from machine work, and our textile and craft trail goes deeper still.
Where you'll stay
Jaipur and Jodhpur: palace nights
- Jaipur: Rambagh Palace for royal history, The Oberoi Rajvilas for calm and space, or Samode Haveli for being inside the walled city.
- Jodhpur: Umaid Bhawan Palace, where the royal family still lives in one wing, or RAAS Jodhpur directly under the fort.
Jaisalmer and Khuri: a fort, a camp and the open dunes
Outside the fort: we don't stay inside Jaisalmer Fort, whose foundations suffer from the water hotels pour into the hill.
- Our choices: Suryagarh on the Sam road, or The Serai, SUJAN's camp in private desert.
- Khuri: the camps are simpler than the best of Sam, so for this one night we arrange a private camp on the dunes, with proper beds, a bathroom tent, a cook and a fire.
- How we choose: our guide to luxury desert camps.
Barmer and the Little Rann: simple and honest
Comfort for place: these are the two nights where you make that trade.
- Barmer: a clean, quiet local stay.
- The Little Rann: a family-run camp or resort on the edge of the salt, with naturalists who know the wild ass.
- Why stop: both are comfortable rather than luxurious, and both are there to make the long drives easier.
Bhuj and Dhordo: inside the landscape
No palace hotels: Kutch has none of the Rajasthan kind.
Bhuj: a comfortable resort with a pool for the afternoons, or a family homestay in a village outside town.
- Dhordo: the Rann Utsav tent city raises heated tents with private bathrooms each winter, and its better categories are well run.
- A more personal night: the community-run village resort at Hodka puts you in a bhunga, a round mud house with a thatched roof, among embroiderers and herders.
- Compare them: our guides to luxury stays in Kutch and luxury hotels in Kutch.
When to go, and why the moon matters
How the salt forms: every monsoon the Great Rann floods with seawater and rain. As the water evaporates in the autumn sun it leaves a crust of salt.
Dry by November: enough to walk on, and white through the winter until the heat of April.
It suits the Thar too: warm, bright days and cold nights, close to freezing in the dunes in December and January, so pack a down jacket.
- White Rann
- Dry and white from November
- Best
- November to February
- Coldest
- December and January, near freezing
- Best nights
- Around the full moon
- Closed
- Monsoon, when the Rann floods
- The full moon: we time your two nights at Dhordo for the days around it whenever we can, because the salt glows silver bright enough to read by.
- Book early: those nights fill first, especially at Christmas.
- March: still pleasant but warming fast.
- April to June: severe heat on both sides of the border.
- The monsoon: the Rann floods and cannot be visited.
- Rann Utsav: at Dhordo roughly from November to February, with folk music, dance and craft stalls. Its dates change each year, and we confirm them as we plan.
- Makar Sankranti: on 14 January it fills the sky over Jaipur's walled city with kites, a lovely start to a January journey.
- Jaisalmer Desert Festival: around the full moon of Magh, usually in February, and its rooms sell out early.
- A dry state: in Gujarat alcohol is controlled by permit. Our page on alcohol and dry days explains what that means for you.
Make it yours
With less time
Ten nights: skip the desert crossing, with three nights in Jaipur and three in Udaipur.
- South by way of Ahmedabad: a night at the House of MG beside the old city of Ahmedabad, then three nights in Kutch.
- Or fly: from Jaipur to Ahmedabad and drive on.
- The trade: you lose Barmer and the Thar, but the drives are far shorter.
With more time
Dholavira: a night near the Harappan city on an island in the Rann, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2021, with its stone reservoirs and its famous signboard in the Indus script.
- Mandvi: end by the sea, where shipwrights still build great wooden ships by hand, with two nights in beach tents.
- How we pace both: our Kutch itinerary.
For families
Children love: the dunes, the camel farm and the jackals of Kala Dungar.
- A lasting memory: licking the White Rann to check it really is salt.
- How we plan: the long day to the Little Rann as gentle as we can, a hotel with a pool in Bhuj, and Smritivan kept for older children.
For couples and photographers
Couples: plan the Rann nights around the full moon and take the best suite in the tent city.
- More time at The Serai: two nights there instead of one in town and one at Khuri.
- Stars: add our stargazing evening with a telescope.
- Photographers: ask for an extra dawn on the Little Rann, when the light over the flat land is extraordinary.
For repeat visitors
- Start in the hills instead: Mount Abu and its marble Dilwara temples, then cross to Ahmedabad, the Little Rann and Kutch.
- Built on that route: our Mount Abu and Gujarat's heritage journey.
How we look after you
One chauffeur, Jaipur to Bhuj: so you are never handed between companies at the state border.
A Kutchi guide: inside Kutch, where distances are long and the border roads quiet, a guide from the region joins you who knows the families in the villages and the hours they can receive you.
Local guides in Rajasthan: one walks with you in each city.
- Airports: we meet you on arrival in Jaipur and see you to your flight at the end.
- The White Rann permit: we arrange it with your other papers and carry copies.
- Your passport: we remind you to keep it with you in Barmer and Kutch, where checks are routine.
- Booked ahead: the tent city around the moon, the Little Rann naturalist and the Barmer artisans.
- Never at night: every drive is planned so that you never cross the open Rann after dark.
- Your planner on WhatsApp: throughout.
- No published prices: this journey changes so much with the season, the moon and your hotels. We quote after one conversation.
- How we plan the roads: our pages on getting around Rajasthan and road distances and drive times.
Who will love it, and who should choose another journey
The people who make things: you will love this journey if you care about them.
A courtyard over a palace: if you would rather sit with an embroiderer than tick off another palace.
- The best night of your life: if silence on a white desert under the moon sounds like it.
- Who it suits: textile lovers, designers, photographers and travellers who have seen the Golden Triangle and want the western edge of the map.
- Not right if: you need a palace every night, long drives tire you, or this is your first visit to India and you want the Taj Mahal.
- For palaces and lakes: choose The Royal Rajputana.
- For the desert alone: choose the desert triangle or Under the Thar Sky.
- For a first look at India: choose Golden Triangle and Udaipur.
