Jaisalmer or Leh?

Neither has anywhere to swim. Jaisalmer's Gadisar Lake is for boating and sunsets, so a pool at one of the heritage hotels on the edge of town is the only option, and a welcome one in the heat. In Leh the snowmelt rivers and high lakes are far too cold for bathing, and the water is there for rafting and the view.

Both kitchens are narrow, but very different in kind. Jaisalmer cooks for the desert: dal baati churma, ker sangri, gatte ki sabzi and slow mutton curries, best met in a vegetarian thali, with kachori and mirchi bada from the morning stalls.

Leh's food is mountain comfort, Tibetan momos and thukpa alongside Ladakhi skyu and salty butter tea, with apricots as the local pride. Both towns fill their visitor rooftops with pizza and pasta, and in Leh much of that scene shuts outside summer.

Jaisalmer has the stronger sights in town. Its twelfth-century fort is a UNESCO-listed citadel still home to thousands of people, holding a royal palace and Jain temples carved in extraordinary detail, and below it stand the havelis of Patwon, Salim Singh and Nathmal.

Leh answers with the nine-storey palace modelled on the Potala, the Namgyal Tsemo ridge and a mud-brick old town worth wandering, but its museums are modest and a day or two covers it. Its finest monasteries are outings rather than town sights.

Neither is a place to go out. Jaisalmer's evenings are rooftop dinners facing the floodlit fort or a campfire show at a dune camp, while Leh's end even earlier, as cold nights, altitude and dawn starts for the passes send everyone to bed.

Here Leh is in another league. The Indus valley is ringed by bare, many-coloured mountains with the snowy Stok range above, and from town you can trek the Markha valley, ride down from Khardung La above 5,000m, raft deep gorges or head out to the Nubra dunes and Pangong Tso. Winter adds snow leopard tracking and the frozen-river Chadar trek.

Jaisalmer has one landscape, the Thar. An overnight camel trek under a dark, starry sky is memorable, the Khuri dunes are a calmer alternative to crowded Sam, and birders find bustards and winter migrants in the Desert National Park. Beyond that there are no hills, rivers or real hiking.

Leh is by far the better base. Thiksey and Shey are under half an hour away, Hemis about an hour, and a long day west reaches Alchi's thousand-year-old painted temples, among the finest early Buddhist art anywhere. Nearly everything is a monastery or palace, but the quality is exceptional.

Jaisalmer's outings are short and few: the Jain temples at Lodurva and the abandoned villages of Kuldhara and Khaba, which pair well with the dunes. Anything further is a long drive for a modest reward.

Jaisalmer is the easier of the two with children, though still best for school-age ones in the cool months. Camels, jeep runs over the dunes and a tent camp with music are made for older children, and the many Indian families visiting make for a warm welcome.

Leh is hard going: altitude sickness after the flight up is a real risk for small children, and most outings are long drives on mountain roads. Robust teenagers who want to trek or raft are the exception.

Both centres can be walked, but Jaisalmer's sights sit tighter together, with auto-rickshaws for short hops and hotels arranging cars or jeeps for the dunes and villages. The hassles are motorbikes, cattle and heat in the narrow lanes.

In Leh the slopes are tiring at altitude, and everything beyond town relies on taxi-union cars, hired motorbikes or shared jeeps over long mountain roads, some of them closed in winter.

Jaisalmer offers more to browse: the fort lanes and old town are crammed with mirror-work textiles, embroidered quilts, camel leather, silver and carved sandstone, though bargaining can be wearing. Leh's Main Bazaar is smaller and leans Tibetan and Kashmiri, with pashmina, thangkas and turquoise, plus useful trekking gear. In both, the same stock repeats from stall to stall.

Both are cheap places to stay, but Jaisalmer stretches a small budget further. Guesthouses with fort views, thalis and rickshaws all cost little, and haggling brings down camel treks and camps.

Leh's guesthouses and momos are just as modest, but transport adds up quickly through fixed taxi-union fares, hired cars and permits for the outer valleys, and hotels charge more in the short summer.

Jaisalmer has the richer live tradition. Manganiyar and Langa musicians, with kamaicha fiddles and khartal clappers, play most evenings at camps, on rooftops and in small shows by the fort, alongside Kalbelia dancers and puppets, and the winter Desert Festival adds more.

Leh's performance is sacred and seasonal: masked cham dances in monastery courtyards, above all at the Hemis festival in summer and around Losar. Timed right it is deeply moving, but on most days there is little to attend.

Jaisalmer offers rest only in pockets. The larger heritage hotels have spas and the old town has simple ayurvedic massage, but touts, traffic and heat make the lanes tiring, so the calmest hours are spent in a haveli courtyard or at a remote camp out in the dunes.

Leh is the better choice for real quiet. It has meditation courses at Buddhist centres near town, consultations with amchi practitioners of traditional Tibetan medicine, and slow mornings on a guesthouse roof, which suit a contemplative stay more than a pampering one. The thin air works against rest at first, though, with dry skin and broken sleep for the first few days.