Places to visit in Jaisalmer in 1 day, in order

Sonar Qila, the Golden Fort, was built from 1156 by Rawal Jaisal on Trikuta hill, and the yellow sandstone glows gold in the low sun. Thousands of people still live inside its walls, among lanes of shops, cafes and homes. The Fort Palace Museum, the old royal palace, has seven floors of rooms, carved balconies and views over the desert. Seven Jain temples from the 12th to the 15th century are a few lanes away, covered in fine stone carving.

Five mansions in a row, built from 1805 by the trader Guman Chand Patwa for his five sons. Their fronts are covered in carved yellow sandstone, with tiny balconies and screens like lace. Kothari's Patwa Haveli, the first, is a museum of rooms set up as they were, with painted ceilings, mirror work, brass pots and old clothes.

A Paliwal Brahmin village that was left empty, the story goes, in a single night in the early 1800s, with a curse that no one would ever live there again. Rows of roofless stone houses, a temple and the old lanes are still standing, and a few houses have been rebuilt to show how people lived.

The best-known dunes of the Thar desert, about 45 km west of Jaisalmer near the edge of the Desert National Park. People come for a camel or jeep ride over the sand at sunset, and the tent camps along the road put on folk music and dance in the evening.