Suryagarh

Kuldhara, 6.6km from Suryagarh, was settled by Paliwal Brahmins in about the thirteenth century and emptied in the nineteenth. Local legend says its families left in a single night and cursed the village against anyone who tried to live there again. So far nobody has. Suryagarh went up in 2014, a fort built from new in golden sandstone 14km west of Jaisalmer, on the road out to the Sam dunes. The way in runs beside a long reflecting pool set with lanterns, to battlements lit from below and a courtyard ringed with carved jharokha windows. From the roof terraces the scrub runs flat to the horizon. The Legend of Marwad is for adults only, and dines under crystal chandeliers against red walls. Neel, the one shared pool, has a roof over it and a sunlit terrace beside it, the sensible way round in the Thar; the Suryagarh Suite and the Thar Haveli keep pools of their own.

Recommended for anyone who would rather wake up in the desert than in Jaisalmer town, and for families whose children are past needing a kids' club, since there is none; the Penthouse has three bedrooms and sleeps nine. The fort is lit at night, which is when a building of 2014 looks most convincingly old. Jaisalmer Fort is a 14km drive. The hotel lays on dinner on the dunes, and a picnic at the oases that comes with parasols and cliffs all round. The sundowner at Kuldhara is the obvious evening, curse permitting. For anyone the ruins leave unmoved, the Chudail Trail goes looking for a chudail, the vengeful female ghost of South Asian folklore, and Nosh stays open all night for whoever gets back hungry.