Jaisalmer with Longewala and Zero line

Rajasthan, the land of sand dunes, forts, might, and history.

Jaisalmer is a must visit destination in December. There are multiple options to reach here, but since we love road-trips we drove to Jaisalmer from Kutch, Gujarat. I will soon do a post on Kutch as well, so stay tuned.

Jaisalmer city view from Sonar Quila

Our primary aim to go to Jaisalmer was to visit Longewala and the Zero line (India-Pakistan) border.

Accommodation

Accommodation options in Jaisalmer can vary based on your agenda. But if you want to visit some of the popular destinations in town and need good food close by, then we recommend that you stay along the Fort road. This road is closer to all tourist attractions in Jaisalmer.

Stays in the desert sand are extremely popular, insanely crowded, and expensive. Bookings happen way in advance, so here’s a tip, staying at hostel if you don’t get a hotel is not bad at all :).

We stayed at a hostel on Fort road also because our prime interest was the BSF Office, which was about 2.5 KM away.

Day 1 – Preparing for Longewala and visiting a few tourist attractions

You cannot just go and visit the zero line border, you need prior permission. Go to the BSF office and do the following at least a day before you plan to visit the border:

• At the gate, let the army personal know that you want to visit the zero line. He will give you a form. Fill it up with details of all members who are visiting.
• Carry a photocopy of ID cards of all those who are visiting, attach it to the form and submit it there.

Before submitting the form, we recommend that you take a picture OR get a photocopy of the form and carry it with you as a proof that you have applied. It may come in handy at Tanot check post if your name doesn’t feature on the list of tourists visiting the border on that day. If you’re lucky they may still let you go and see the border.

They say that you will get a message on WhatsApp on the cell number of the main applicant, regarding the paper submission or confirmation but that didn’t happen in our case. Also, we couldn’t verify this with fellow applicants.

You can spend the rest of the day visiting some other tourist attractions. Most of them are around the Fort Road so, try striking a deal with an auto-rickshaw fellow or a six-seater driver for a few hours. Here’s why:

• You’re usually unaware of routes and alternate options since its right at the heart of the city.
• Roads are extremely narrow and it is impossible to take your four-wheeler there. Even if you manage, finding a parking is a major task.
• It’s extremely cost effective this way, because they take you to the tourist places and wait there until you are done.

We engaged an auto-rickshaw fellow for about 4 hours. This included our visit to the BSF office and 4 other tourist attractions, for 400 bucks 🙂 .
Here’s what we visited:

The Janana Mahal: It’s part B of another mahal (Jawahar Mahal or Villa I guess) that was closed that day for some reason. This place is nothing great to look at and expensive. It’s like a museum of ancient weapons, utensils, typewriters, and so on.

Patwon ki Haweli: This place just looks good from outside. Just like a big mansion. People live in here, so there’s nothing from a site seeing perspective. Architecture wise palaces and haweli’s are pretty much the same but differ only in scale.

Gadisar lake: Extremely well maintained and beautiful! Here’s a short video.

Gadisar Lake

Sonar Quila (Jaisalmer fort):

This is just great! It’s one of the living forts in the world. One fourth of the old city’s population still resides within the fort. Rest of the fort is converted into a market where you can go shopping. It’s majestic!

Sonar Quila

Day 2 Visiting Longewala and the (Zero Line)

Longewala War Museum

Enroute to Longewala

Launghewala Yudh Sthal, is where the battle of Longewala took place in 1971, where India defeated Pakistan. Full of pride, tears rolled down my eyes after visiting the place.

Launghewala Yudh Sthal

There is a small museum here that showcases all the guns and other weapons, and models of tanks used in the war. It tells stories of valour by our soldiers. There is a mini theatre where they play a 20 minute movie about the war, free of charge.

Tanot Mata Mandir

It’s a lovely ancient temple that has many stories linked to it. People here believe that there is a grenade (or bomb) that landed here during the Longewala battle but never exploded because of Tanot mata’s grace.

There is a BSF outpost here, where they have the list of applicants who are permitted to visit the zero line. Once you confirm that your name is there in the list, you are required to submit original Govt. ID card of the primary applicant and you can proceed. Remember to take your ID card back on your return from zero line.

*Cellular services from any service provider do not work here, except for BSNL.

Zero Line

Zero line or BSF Post BP 609 is 20 KMs from the Tanot mata mandir. The drive is lovely. You have to pass by two check posts here and sign. It’s better if the primary applicant does that.

When you reach the zero line you see the majestic fence spanning over a thousand kilometres. The India-Pakistan border. I have no words to describe the feeling we all got, gasping and gazing at the fence.

There is a BSF watch tower here. We got into a queue and waited for our turn because only 5 to 6 people are allowed in. An army person in-charge on that day briefed us about the zero line and its surroundings.
Note that the army personnel are not liable to answer any of your questions. However, they won’t mind answering sensible ones 🙂 .

From the watch tower, we saw both India and Pakistan check posts. Similar to the Wagah border, there’s a parade ceremony here as well on our Republic Day and Independence Day.

Here, please respect the army sign board that says “Photography is strictly prohibited” and do not take selfies. It was sad to see a few citizens of our country who chose to be disrespectful.

Jai Hind!