The Narain Niwas Palace Hotel is another 19th century ancestral property that was converted and restored into a luxurious heritage hotel. From the looks of their website, the Narain Niwas Palace Hotel has been spiffied up big time since our stay. It was relatively underwhelming after the grandiose Palace Hotels in Jaipur, Mandawa and Bikaner (how easy to get spoiled) and the major selling point was that Princess Anne of England had stayed here once upon a time. As a matter of fact, we were given Princess Anne’s exact room and this was the “best available” in Jaisalmer w-a-y back then…

It was sparsely furnished and thankfully air-conditioned which was all I cared about at the moment, stricken by nausea. A few hours in a prone position with moans of “Let me die in peace” before our guide,Francis, appeared with rehydration salts. His right-on-target diagnosis was dehydration due to not drinking enough fluids coupled with the jarring rides on bad highways and fatigue. In the many years of travel since then, I’ve discovered that tummy troubles usually aren’t food-related but caused by dehydration and fatigue.

The Narain Niwas Palace Hotel has 43 rooms and is located in the heart of Jaisalmer, a very big plus…View image. The hotel does the usual – organizing tours, tickets, restaurants, room service, and now has their own desert camp at Sam sand dunes, called The Resort Rawla. Narain Niwas Palace will even organize visits to local villages. They both sound like fun.

Feeling almost human once more, it was time for a sunset camel ride to admire Jaisalmer from a distance…

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