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As you head west from Jaipur, or north from Chittor and Bundi, the flat, arid expanse of the Dhundar plains are dramatically interrupted by the Aravallis, running in a bare brown ridge towards Mount Abu and the Gujarat border. A reference point for millions of pilgrims over the centuries, this steeply shelving spur, known locally as the Nag Pahar (Snake Mountain), forms an appropriately epic backdrop for AJMER , famous throughout India as the former home of the Sufi Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chishti , founder of the Chishtiya order. He died here in 1236, at a time when Ajmer was under Muslim rule, the forces of the fearsome Mahmud Ghazni and Muhammad of Ghor having successfully besieged what was previously a stronghold of the Rajput Chauhans in 1191. To this day, the Chishti's tomb, or Dargah , remains one of the holiest Muslim shrines in the country, attracting streams of pilgrims and dervishes (it is believed that seven visits here are the equivalent of one to Mecca), especially during Muharram and Id, and for the Chishti's anniversary day, or Urs Mela in October/November. For Hindus and foreign travellers, however, Ajmer is important primarily as a jumping-off place for Pushkar , a twenty-minute bus ride away across the hills.

Weighed down with luggage, you're unlikely to want to pause here for longer than it takes to catch a bus out of town, but it's definitely worth making time for a visit before you leave the area. Although Ajmer's dusty main streets are choked with traffic, the narrow lanes of the bazaars and residential quarters around the Dargah retain an almost medieval character, with lines of rose-petal stalls and shops selling prayer mats, beads and lengths of gold-edged green silk offerings. Finely arched Moghul gateways, some bearing fragments of blue and green glazed tilework, still stand at the main entrances to the old city, whose skyscape of whitewashed mosque minarets and domes is overlooked from on high by the crumbling crenellations of what was for centuries India's most strategically important fortress, the mighty Taragarh . Ajmer is also one of the few sacred Islamic sites in the country where you can be pretty certain of catching qawwali singers in action.