Jaisalmer

Rajasthan

Jaisalmer's fort is one of the few in the world still inhabited — nearly a quarter of the old city's population lives within its walls, in havelis carved from the same honey-coloured sandstone as the ramparts around them. At sunset the whole city turns gold, the source of its name.

Beyond the walls, the Thar Desert begins almost immediately: dunes at Sam and Khuri where camel trains still cross at dusk, the silence broken only by wind moving sand from one shape into another.