After having spent a ridiculous amount of money on a silver earring that I was probably going to wear twice in my lifetime, we went to a restaurant to have lunch. The idea was to spend some time relaxing in the restaurant before driving to the dessert camp at Sam. The decor of the restaurant was a bit overdone with all the mirrors and artifacts and was getting a tad bit claustrophobic, so we decided to push off to the dessert.

Since we still had some extra hours in hand, we searched online for nearby places and found the description for Kuldhara, en route from Jaisalmer to Sam sand dunes. Kuldhara is also known as the ghost village or the abandoned village. Kuldhara owns a spooky tale of a beautiful girl and a king who fell in love with her. The villagers opposed the union (not sure if the girl had a say in all this) which angered the king. The king then attacked the village and the villagers were either killed or they deserted the village en mass. It is said to be haunted since.

The road towards Sam dunes and Kuldhara is an arid dessert with the bright yellow sand reflecting the golden rays of the sun in all intensity. The road snakes across this flat sandy land rendering itself to mirages. A rickety sign on the road says turn left for Kuldhara, we quite animatedly asked our driver who ran a non coperation movement for the 9 days and 2000 kms across Rajasthan, to take a turn to Kuldhara.

Kuldhara was derelict as one can expect from an abandoned village, the tourism board is working on recreating some of the buildings, complete with the intricate stone work which is characteristic of Jaisalmer. This haunted village plays right into the fairy tale that is Rajasthan. I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

 

Pictures credited to Razor Rasu. Copyright material do not re purpose without permission.