Jodhpur or Leh?

Neither city is a place to swim. Jodhpur's lakes, such as Kaylana, are reservoirs to look at, but many heritage hotels have courtyard pools, which matter in the desert heat. In Leh the Indus and the high lakes are fed by snowmelt and stay icy, so water there means rafting or the view, not a swim.

Jodhpur has the more distinctive food. Its Marwari cooking runs from mirchi vada and pyaaz kachori at breakfast to saffron makhaniya lassi, ker sangri on a thali and fiery laal maas. Beyond that the range narrows to rooftop tourist menus and formal palace dining.

Leh eats more simply: momos, thukpa and thenthuk, skyu and butter tea in homestays, then apricots and sea buckthorn juice. The trekkers' cafés of Changspa and Fort Road add pizza and good coffee, but much of the scene shuts outside summer. Drink plays only a small part in either city.

Jodhpur's sights are grander and sit in the city itself. Mehrangarh rises from its ridge with one of Rajasthan's best museums inside. Below it are Jaswant Thada, the blue old city, the carved Toorji ka Jhalra stepwell and the Art Deco bulk of Umaid Bhawan, enough for two full days.

Leh Palace, built in the manner of the Potala, and the Namgyal Tsemo ridge give the town a striking skyline, and the mud-brick old town and the sunset view from Shanti Stupa reward an unhurried walk. The museums are modest, though, and the major art lies outside town.

Neither is a night-out destination, but Jodhpur offers a little more: a rooftop dinner facing the floodlit fort and perhaps a drink in a heritage hotel bar. In Leh even that thins out, with beer in only a few places, and the altitude, cold nights and dawn starts send most people to bed early.

Here Leh is in another league. The Indus valley is ringed by bare, many-coloured mountains with the snowy Stok range on the skyline. The Markha valley trek starts within a couple of hours, Khardung La rises above 5,000m and the Zanskar gorges carry rafting. Nubra's dunes, Pangong Tso and winter snow leopard tracking take it further still.

Jodhpur's outdoors is rocky desert scrub: trails through the Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park, ziplines over the ramparts, blackbuck and chinkara in Bishnoi country, and camel rides into the Thar. It makes for pleasant winter mornings, but there are no mountains or forests.

Leh has the richer ring of outings, almost all of them monasteries. Thiksey and Shey are within half an hour, Hemis is about an hour away, and a full day west takes in Likir, Basgo and the thousand-year-old paintings at Alchi. The variety is narrow but the quality is exceptional.

From Jodhpur, the carved temples and dunes of Osian are the main day out, with the Bishnoi villages and the Salawas rug weavers closer in. Ranakpur and Kumbhalgarh are three hours or more away and are better seen on the road to Udaipur.

Jodhpur is the more workable choice with children, especially in winter. Older children love the fort's cannons, armour and howdahs, and the ziplines, camel rides and a blackbuck safari add to it, while a hotel pool fills the gaps. The narrow lanes full of rickshaws and cows call for care.

Leh is hard going with young children, because a single flight lands them at altitude and acclimatising needs real rest. Robust teenagers who are keen on trekking or rafting are the ones who get the most out of it.

Jodhpur is the easier of the two to get around. The Clock Tower market, the blue old city and the Toorji ka Jhalra stepwell are a short walk apart, with Mehrangarh directly above them, and auto-rickshaws wait on almost every corner for the ride out to Umaid Bhawan or Mandore once a fare is agreed. The difficulty is underfoot: few pavements, lanes shared with motorbikes and cows, and heat that makes walking hard going after mid-morning.

Leh's own centre, from the Main Bazaar up to the old town and out to Changspa, is small enough to walk, though the slopes are tiring at altitude. Beyond it everything is harder. The buses are sparse and slow, so you depend on the union taxis and their steep fixed fares, hired motorbikes or shared jeeps. Every outing means a long drive on mountain roads, and in winter some passes close.

Jodhpur is the better place to shop. Sardar Market and the lanes around the Clock Tower sell bandhani and leheriya textiles, mojari slippers, silver and lacquerwork. Warehouses on the outskirts sell antiques and furniture and will ship them abroad, and jodhpurs can still be tailored. Touts make bargaining essential.

Leh's Main Bazaar is smaller and more repetitive: pashmina, thangkas, turquoise jewellery and singing bowls, plus useful trekking gear and the dried apricots that Ladakhi women sell on the street.

Both are cheap places to stay and eat, and Jodhpur goes a little further. Its guesthouses, thalis and rickshaw rides cost little, and a car and driver is good value. Only the palace hotels are expensive.

In Leh the homestays and momos are cheap too, but transport adds up. Union taxi fares are high by Indian standards, days out mean hiring a car, and the outer valleys need permits.

Jodhpur has the music you can actually go and hear. In the evenings, Manganiyar and Langa musicians play kamaicha and khartal in Mehrangarh's courtyards and on hotel terraces, often with Kalbeliya dancers, and each autumn a folk festival at the fort draws players from across the desert.

In Leh, performance is religious and tied to particular dates: the masked cham dances at monastery festivals such as Hemis in summer, and the celebrations around Losar. Time a stay to one of these and it is deeply moving. Otherwise there is little beyond cultural evenings put on for tourists.

Neither has a bathing culture, and in both the calm lies away from the street, but the kind of calm differs. Jodhpur's is comfort: Ayurvedic massage, palace hotel spas and shaded courtyards that shut out the horns and heat. Leh's is contemplative: meditation courses, amchi Tibetan medicine and quiet guesthouse roofs, though the thin air and poor sleep take the edge off it in the first days.