India · Rajasthan
Jaisalmer
One of the last forts on earth people never moved out of, golden sandstone in the middle of the Thar, with carved merchant mansions below and dunes an hour away.
Jaisalmer stands a long way west of everywhere else in Rajasthan, where the Thar Desert runs on towards the Pakistan border, built almost entirely from one soft yellow sandstone that turns the colour of hot butter at either end of the day. It grew rich taxing the camel caravans between India, Sindh and Central Asia, and the merchant families who collected those tolls carved their own houses, so a small frontier town holds some of the most extravagant stonework in the country. Its 12th-century citadel was never emptied into a museum: several thousand people still live inside the walls.
Suggested stay
2–3 days
Language
Hindi, English
Currency
INR
Timezone
UTC+5:30
Why you'll love Jaisalmer
The living fort a triangular sandstone citadel ringed by rounded bastions, and instead of a ticket barrier, temples, shops, cows, washing lines and families who have been up there for generations.
The stonework the merchant houses below the walls are carved to a depth that looks impossible in sandstone, screens and balconies cut so fine the light comes through them in patterns.
The desert an hour out of town the stony scrub gives way to real dunes, and a night out there with a camel, a fire and hereditary desert musicians is what most people remember.
The colour one material for the whole town, dun at noon and molten at the ends; the fort from a rooftop at dusk is one of the great sights in India.
Best time to visit
Nov-Mar
23-33° days
27.026° N, 70.778° E
UTC+5:30 · Asia/Kolkata
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Weather & when to go to Jaisalmer
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Nov-Mar
Watch for Apr-Oct extreme heat risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Jaisalmer
April to July is the stretch to plan around: the Thar turns furnace-hot, the daytime wind carries sand rather than relief, and the camel and camp trade out at the dunes thins right out. Clear desert nights get properly cold from December into January, so the same trip needs a sun hat at noon and a jacket after dark, and the cool season is when rooms go first.
Top things to do in Jaisalmer
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Jaisalmer Fort - the citadel nobody moved out of
history 👍 PopularA triangular hill fort begun in the 12th century, ringed by ninety-nine rounded bastions and entered up a switchback ramp through a sequence of gates, and still a working part of the town rather than a monument. Several thousand people live inside, so the walk up to the palace goes past school bags, motorbikes, cows and somebody's washing, and the lanes have shops, shrines and kitchens in them rather than interpretive panels. Go up twice: once in daylight for the lanes, once at dusk from outside for the way the whole hill catches the last of the light. Read the note on sleeping inside before you book a room up there.
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The Jain temples inside the fort - seven shrines carved into one another
history culture arts ⭐ Highly recommendedA cluster of interlinked Jain temples tucked into the fort's lanes, built and extended between the 12th and 15th centuries and covered inside and out with the densest carving in town: tiers of dancers, elephants and celestial figures worked into the same yellow stone, ceilings cut into concentric rosettes, and a hush the rest of the fort does not have. One of them sits above an old library of palm-leaf manuscripts. Opening hours are short and mostly confined to the morning, leather has to come off at the door, and it is worth timing the whole fort visit around them rather than the other way round.
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Patwon Ki Haveli - five merchant mansions in a row
history culture arts 👍 PopularThe most extravagant thing the caravan money ever built: five adjoining houses raised in the early 19th century by one family of traders in brocade, silver and opium, their facades stacked with projecting balconies and stone screens carved so finely they read as lacework. One wing is a state museum, others are privately run with mirror-work rooms and painted ceilings, and the lane in front is too narrow to take in the whole frontage at once, which is part of the effect. Climb to a rooftop for the view back across the sandstone roofscape to the fort.
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Nathmal Ki Haveli - the house two brothers carved from opposite ends
history culture artsBuilt in the 1880s for a prime minister of the state by two brothers who each took one side and worked inwards, which is why the halves nearly match and then do not: the elephants, the flowers, even the width of the brackets drift apart the longer you look. The carving includes a bicycle and a steam engine, put there by craftsmen working from description rather than sight. It is still partly lived in, so most visitors see the facade and the entrance rooms, which is enough.
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Salim Singh Ki Haveli - the mansion with the peacock roof
historyA tall, narrow, faintly sinister house belonging to a prime minister remembered as the most ruthless figure in the town's history, topped by an overhanging upper storey of arched blue-tinged brackets that fans out over the street like a peacock's tail. The story goes that he began a further storey to reach the height of the fort palace and was ordered to stop. Inside it is smaller than the outside promises; the facade is the reason to come, and it is best seen from the lane below rather than head-on.
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Gadisar Lake - the reservoir that made a town in the desert possible
history scenicA rainwater tank dug below the town centuries ago and, until piped supply arrived, the entire water supply of Jaisalmer, ringed by ghats, small shrines and domed pavilions that stand out in the water when the level is up. You reach it through an ornate arched gateway with a story attached: a courtesan is said to have paid for it, the court wanted it pulled down, and she put a shrine on top so that nobody could. Come at dawn for migratory birds and flat light, or take a pedal boat out among the catfish late in the day.
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The Fort Palace - the royal apartments above the main chowk
historyThe Maharawal's palace rises straight off the fort's main square, where the rulers appeared on a marble throne and where the town still gathers. An audio tour works up through low doorways and screened rooms to a roof with the desert on one side and the town's flat sandstone roofs on the other. The best exhibits are the small ones: sculpture recovered from the older capital out on the plain, silverwork, and the chance to look at the stone lattice panels from behind, which is where you understand how thin they actually are.
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Bada Bagh - the royal cenotaphs on the ridge
history scenicA hillside of chhatris, domed sandstone canopies raised over the cremation sites of the Bhati rulers, ranked up the slope in rows, each with a carved plaque of its man on horseback under the dome. It is half-ruined, unlandscaped and often nearly empty, and modern wind turbines turn on the ridge directly behind, which sounds like vandalism and in practice makes one of the strangest and best pictures in Rajasthan. Sunset is the hour, and there is no shade at all before it.
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Sam Sand Dunes - camel trains on the only real dunes near town
scenic adventure 👍 PopularThe country around Jaisalmer is mostly hard and stony, and the ridge of soft, properly Saharan-looking dunes out west is the reason the whole camel-safari trade exists at all. Late afternoon brings a convoy: camels in single file over the crest, jeeps thumping through the bowls behind them, tents strung along the edge, dinner with dancers and drummers after dark. It is a fairground at sunset rather than a wilderness, and it is also genuinely beautiful for the twenty minutes when the light goes and the ridge lines come up.
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A night out in the desert - camp, camels and Manganiyar music
adventure culture arts ⭐ Highly recommendedThe thing worth planning the trip around, and the version matters more than the destination. What you want is a camp far enough from the main dune strip that you cannot hear anyone else's generator, a short camel ride out at the right hour rather than a long sore one, dinner on the sand, and hereditary Manganiyar or Langa musicians playing kamaicha and khartal properly rather than for four minutes between courses. The sky out there is the point. Take far more warm clothing than the daytime suggests, because the desert dumps its heat the moment the sun is down.
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Vyas Chhatri - sunset cenotaphs facing the fort
scenicA second, smaller field of domed memorials on a rise just outside the walls, raised over Brahmin families rather than rulers, and the classic place to stand while the fort goes orange and then pink with the whole town underneath it. It is close enough to walk to from the old town, crowded for the half hour that matters and more or less empty either side of it.
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The desert kitchen - ker sangri, gatte and makhaniya lassi
foodThar cooking was worked out in a place where almost nothing green grows, so it leans on what keeps: dried desert berries and beans stewed with chilli and dried mango, gram-flour dumplings in a yoghurt gravy, hard wheat balls baked in embers and crumbled into ghee and lentils, and a thick saffron and cardamom lassi that functions as a meal. Almost all of it is vegetarian and a fair amount of it is fierce. The rooftop places with a fort view generally trade the cooking for the view, so eat the local food at ground level and go up afterwards.
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The old town lanes - embroidery, quilts and puppets in the bazaar
shopping culture artsThe lanes between the fort ramp and the main bazaar are where the town does its actual trade: mirrored and embroidered textiles from the border districts, block-printed and applique quilts, camel-leather bags, silver, and the string puppets Rajasthan makes everywhere and Jaisalmer sells hardest. Nothing is fixed and the first number is a long way from the last. Genuinely old embroidery is a separate market from the tourist run and is sold as such, so be clear about which one you are buying in.
Best areas to stay in Jaisalmer
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Inside the fort
Atmosphere first $Lived-in citadel lanes above the town
Explore hotels in Inside the fort →
The old town below the fort
First-time visitors $$Carved havelis, bazaars and rooftop fort views
Explore hotels in The old town below the fort →
Gadisar Lake
Quiet and views $Quiet ghats on the eastern edge
Explore hotels in Gadisar Lake →
Sam and Khuri
A desert night $$Tented camps out in the dune country
Explore hotels in Sam and Khuri →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Jaisalmer
Getting to & around Jaisalmer
Getting there
Almost everyone arrives on an overnight sleeper train into a station on the eastern edge of town; the small airport nearby only takes scheduled flights in the cool half of the year, so Jodhpur is the year-round air option.
Flight
Jaisalmer Airport (JSA)
Jaisalmer has its own airport, a civil terminal attached to an air force station a short drive east of town, and when it is running it is easily the quickest way in, with the trip to the old town taking well under half an hour by taxi or hotel pickup. The catch is that it is seasonal. Scheduled flights operate in the cool tourist months and the terminal goes quiet for the rest of the year, the schedule is thin even in season, and the routes served change from one year to the next. There is no bus and no rail connection to it. Do not build an itinerary around flying in or out of here until you have seen a live schedule for your own dates.
Train
Jaisalmer railway station, on the eastern edge of town
The default way in and the best of them. Overnight sleepers run up from Jodhpur in roughly five to six hours, from Jaipur in about twelve, and straight through from Delhi in a long night and part of a morning, with a few daytime services on the shorter runs. The last stretch across flat scrub at first light is worth being awake for. The station is a couple of kilometres from the fort, with autorickshaws outside and a wall of hotel touts behind them. Sleeper berths sell out well ahead through the cool months, so book as early as you can.
Coach
The bus stands outside the walls
State-run and private buses cover the same routes as the train and rather more of the district: Jodhpur in five to six hours, Bikaner in six or so across the northern desert, Jaipur and Udaipur as long overnight hauls. Private operators sell sleeper berths that are more comfortable than they look on paper and less comfortable than a train berth. Mainly useful when the trains are full, which through the season they often are.
Drive
The road in from Jodhpur is a fast, straight, largely empty desert highway of about 285 km, four and a half to five and a half hours with a stop, passing through Pokhran roughly halfway. Plenty of people arrive with a hired car and driver as part of a Rajasthan loop, which is the sensible way to do it if you want the villages, cenotaphs and abandoned sites around town without negotiating a jeep every morning. Fuel and food stops thin out west of Pokhran, and driving these roads after dark is a bad idea: livestock, unlit trucks and drifting sand.
Flight
Jodhpur
When Jaisalmer's own airport is closed for the season, Jodhpur is the nearest airport with a year-round schedule and decent connections to Delhi and Mumbai. From there it is a five-hour-plus drive or an overnight train, so it is an approach rather than a transfer, and it works best treated as a stop in its own right for a night or two rather than as a connection.
Getting around
Walking
The old town and the fort are small and best done on foot: the walled centre is maybe twenty minutes end to end, and the fort's ramp and lanes are stepped, cobbled and too narrow for anything else. There is almost no shade and the stone throws heat back at you, so shift the walking to the ends of the day.
Free
Autorickshaw
The workhorse for the station, the lake, the cenotaphs and anything on the edge of town. Meters are not used, so agree the fare before you get in, and expect a suggested detour to a shop or a camel camp the driver has an arrangement with. They can take the fort ramp only as far as the first courtyard.
TBC
Car with driver
How most people do the day trips, booked through a hotel or an agency by the half day or the day. Worth it for anything past the immediate ring of sites, and close to necessary for the run towards the border, where the driver handles the checkposts and the paperwork.
TBC
Jeep
Shared and private jeeps run out to the dune camps in the late afternoon and back the next morning, usually bundled with whatever camp you have booked. Off-road dune bashing is sold hard out at the main dune strip and is an acquired taste.
TBC
Motorbike or scooter
Easy to hire, and the loop northwest of town past the cenotaphs, the old capital and the abandoned village is a genuinely good ride on quiet roads. Carry more water than you think you need, do not ride through the middle of the day in the hot months, and stay off unsignposted tracks heading towards the border.
TBC
Day trips from Jaisalmer
Sam Sand Dunes
Half dayDune field and camps
The nearest stretch of proper sand dunes and the engine of the local safari trade. Everybody goes for the same two hours, so the crest at sunset comes with camel trains, jeeps, hawkers and drumming, and the tented camps below run dinner and folk performances afterwards. Go with that rather than against it, or book a camp set well back from the strip and walk out to a quieter ridge. Most people fold this into an overnight rather than a return trip, and the drive back in the dark is one of the few genuinely cold hours of a Jaisalmer day in winter.
Getting there
car | tour
About 40 km west, roughly 45 min by car or jeep
Kuldhara and Khaba
Half dayAbandoned Paliwal villages
A grid of roofless stone houses on open ground, abandoned by its Paliwal Brahmin community in the 19th century along with a cluster of neighbouring villages. The story sold on site is a curse and a predatory prime minister demanding the headman's daughter; the duller explanations, punitive taxation and failing wells, are probably closer to it. Several houses have been reroofed to show how they worked, and the site is ticketed and busy at midday. Khaba, a little further on, has a small fort on a rise above a second abandoned village with a resident population of peacocks and better views over the whole layout.
Getting there
car | tour
About 20 km southwest, half an hour by car or motorbike
Lodhurva and Amar Sagar
Half dayOld capital and garden tank
Lodhurva was the Bhati capital before Jaisalmer existed, sacked from the northwest and abandoned when the court moved to the defensible hill, and almost nothing of the city survives. What does is a rebuilt Jain temple standing alone in the scrub, with a finely carved arched gateway and a metal tree representing the celestial kalpavriksha inside, plus resident peacocks and an attendant with a story about a cobra. Amar Sagar, on the way back, is a tank with a crumbling garden palace and its own Jain temple, and it is worth ten minutes rather than an hour. The pair make a good short circuit with the royal cenotaphs.
Getting there
car
About 15 km northwest, 25 min by car
Khuri
Half dayQuieter dune village
The alternative to the main dune strip: a small village of mud-and-thatch houses with painted walls, smaller dunes, fewer jeeps and a camp scene that has grown but not to the same scale. You get the same sunset and the same night sky with a fraction of the noise, and the village itself is a more honest picture of how people actually live out here. The trade is that the dunes are less dramatic and the drive is longer, and Khuri sits inside the wider protected desert area, so the rules on where vehicles may go are tighter.
Getting there
car | tour
About 45 km southwest, roughly an hour by car
Desert National Park
Half dayBustard and desert wildlife
Over 3,000 square kilometres of sand, gravel plain, salt flat and thorn scrub, and the last serious stronghold of the great Indian bustard, a huge ground bird now down to a desperately small world population. Sightings are not remotely guaranteed. What you will more likely see is chinkara gazelle, desert fox, spiny-tailed lizards and, in the cool months, raptors including harriers and vultures over the flats. Permits and a guide are arranged in town, dawn is the productive hour, and this is a trip for people who like empty country and birds rather than a substitute for a tiger park.
Getting there
car | tour
About 40 km out on the Sam road, by jeep with a permit
Tanot and Longewala
Full dayBorder shrine and battlefield
A long run out towards the frontier to a small temple looked after by the border force, where shells that fell around it during the 1965 war are displayed inside, unexploded, along with the story that none of them went off. Nearby, Longewala is where a tiny Indian post held off an armoured advance in 1971 with air support at first light, and there are tanks, a memorial and a modest museum on the site. The drive is the experience as much as the destinations: flat, empty, enormous. Identity documents are checked, permits apply, the rules for foreign passports are stricter and change, and photography is off-limits at military positions, so have a hotel or driver confirm the current position before setting out.
Getting there
car | tour
About 120 km northwest into the border zone, three hours each way by car
Pokhran
Half dayDesert fort on the Jodhpur road
A compact red and yellow sandstone fort in a dusty crossroads town, with a small museum of Rajput arms, textiles and local terracotta, and enough shade in its courtyards to justify the stop. It works best as a break in the drive to or from Jodhpur rather than a return trip from Jaisalmer. The town is far better known for the army range in the surrounding desert, where India tested nuclear devices in 1974 and again in 1998; the range is closed and there is nothing to see, but the name is on every shopfront.
Getting there
car
About 110 km east on the Jodhpur highway, two hours by car
A little history of Jaisalmer
Jaisalmer was founded in 1156 when Rawal Jaisal, a Bhati Rajput chief whose clan traced its line to the Yadavas of Krishna, gave up the older capital out on the plain at Lodhurva and moved to a triangular rock called Trikuta, which could be defended and which a hermit is supposed to have told him would be attacked many times but never taken outright. The Bhatis were desert raiders before they were anything else, and what made them rich was position: the caravan roads between Delhi, Sindh and the cities of Central Asia and Persia crossed here, and the rulers taxed everything that passed, opium, indigo, silk, spices and silver. The merchant families who handled that trade, many of them Jain, put their profits into stone. They built the temple cluster inside the fort and, later, the extraordinary carved mansions below it, in a soft local sandstone that a chisel cuts almost like wood and that hardens on contact with the air.
The fort's history is a good deal more violent than its colour suggests. It was besieged for years by the armies of Delhi around 1300, and the tradition is that the siege ended in jauhar, the women of the fort burning themselves on a mass pyre while the men rode out to die, a sequence Jaisalmer is said to have repeated at least once afterwards. A treaty with the East India Company in 1818 left the state its ruler and its revenues through the colonial period. What finished the town in the end was not war but trade: sea routes through Bombay had already pulled the caravans away, and Partition in 1947 closed the roads into Sindh overnight and left Jaisalmer facing a sealed border with nothing on the far side of it. The place emptied and decayed for a generation. The wars of 1965 and 1971 brought it back, in the shape of a garrison, an air base and the roads and railway built to supply them, and a much-loved detective film shot in and around the fort in the mid-1970s made it a destination for Indian travellers well before foreign ones turned up. Tourism has been the economy ever since, and it cuts both ways: the piped water and plumbing that arrived with the hotels in the 1990s went into a hill with no drainage under it, and the seepage has undermined foundations and brought down sections of wall, so the fort now carries a conservation problem as famous as its skyline.
Rawal Jaisal abandons the Bhati capital at Lodhurva and founds a fort on the Trikuta hill above the caravan road.
A long siege by the armies of Delhi ends in jauhar and the sacking of the fort, which is later reoccupied and rebuilt.
The Jain merchant community builds and extends the interlinked temple cluster inside the fort walls.
The state signs a treaty with the East India Company and keeps its ruler and its customs revenues under British protection.
Caravan wealth peaks and the trading families raise the great carved havelis in the town below the fort.
Partition seals the routes into Sindh, the caravan economy ends and the town begins a long decline into a border backwater.
Two border wars turn Jaisalmer into a garrison town and bring the roads, railway and air base that reconnect it.
A Bengali detective film shot in and around the fort makes Jaisalmer a household name in India and starts the tourist trade.
Piped water without matching drainage begins undermining the fort; bastions and walls collapse and conservation campaigns start.
The fort is inscribed on the World Heritage list as one of the Hill Forts of Rajasthan.
Know before you go
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Workable
Power
Type D / M
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+91
Extreme heat risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
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FAQs about Jaisalmer
▸ When is the best time to visit Jaisalmer?
November to March is the season, and it is not a close call: the desert is dry and clear, days are warm rather than punishing, and this is when the camps, the camel trade and the seasonal flights all run. Pack for a much bigger daily swing than the daytime suggests, because clear desert nights in December and January get genuinely cold. April to July is the stretch to avoid, when the Thar becomes one of the hottest places in India and the wind delivers sand rather than relief. August and September pick up what little rain the Thar gets, which is not much and does not last long, and October sits in between as the heat lets go. One thing to plan around: a desert festival fills the dunes and the town for a few days in the late winter, which is a very good time to be here and a very bad time to be looking for a room.
▸ How many days do you need in Jaisalmer?
Two full days plus a night in the desert covers it properly. One day takes the fort, the temples inside it and the merchant houses below; the second takes the lake, the cenotaphs and the ring of abandoned villages and old capitals within half an hour of town; the desert night goes on the end or in the middle. A third day earns its place only if you want the long run out to the border sites, or you simply like the town, which a lot of people do. Jaisalmer is a long way from anywhere, so anything under two nights spends more time getting here than being here.
▸ Should you sleep inside the fort?
This is the one real ethical question the town puts to you, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a shrug. Jaisalmer Fort is inhabited, its hill is soft rock, and it was never built to drain the volume of water that piped supply and modern plumbing put into it from the 1990s onwards. Seepage has weakened foundations, and sections of wall and several bastions have come down. Conservation bodies and campaigners have spent years raising money for drainage that the fort's own occupancy keeps overloading, and on that basis guidebooks have long asked visitors to stay below and go up by day. The counter-argument is real as well: people live in the fort whether or not you sleep there, the businesses inside are mostly family-run, drainage work has been done, and residents fairly resent outsiders deciding their homes are too fragile to earn a living in. Where that leaves most travellers is this: go up freely, eat and shop up there, and if you want a bed inside, go in knowing the argument rather than finding out afterwards. If you would rather not weigh it up at all, the haveli hotels immediately below the walls give you the same view from the better side of it.
▸ Is the camel safari worth doing, and where should you go?
Yes, if you choose the version rather than take whatever the first tout offers. The dunes on the main strip west of town are the real thing and also the busy thing: at sunset you get camel trains, jeeps, hawkers and amplified drumming, and it feels like a fairground with sand. The quieter village further southwest, or any camp set back from the main dune road, gives you the same sky with a fraction of the noise. Book through your hotel or a camp you have actually looked into rather than off the street, ask how far out the camp really is and how long you will be on the camel, and prefer a short ride at the right hour to a long one that leaves you sore for two days. Anything sold as a multi-night trek into the deep desert is a different proposition and needs a serious operator.
▸ How do you get to Jaisalmer, and is the train really the best way?
The train, yes, for most people. Overnight sleepers run in from Jodhpur, Jaipur and Delhi and set you down on the edge of town around breakfast, which is both the cheapest and the most enjoyable approach; berths sell out well ahead in the cool months. The town has its own small airport, but scheduled flights only operate in the cool season, the schedule is thin and the routes change, so treat flying as a bonus rather than a plan until you have checked live times for your dates. Otherwise it is Jodhpur, roughly five hours away by road, either as an airport or as a stop in its own right. Buses cover the same routes and are the fallback when the trains are full.
▸ Is it safe to travel this close to the Pakistan border?
In practical terms, yes. This is a heavily garrisoned district and has been since the 1960s, which makes it one of the more orderly corners of Rajasthan, and the frontier itself sits well beyond where visitors normally go. What you do need to respect are the rules around it: the run out to the border shrines and battlefields passes military checkposts, identity documents are checked, permits apply, and the rules for foreign passports are stricter and change, so have a hotel or driver confirm the current position before you set off. Do not photograph military installations, and do not go wandering off-road towards the frontier on a hired motorbike. The ordinary annoyances here are the usual Rajasthani ones: commission-driven touts at the station and very hard selling of camel trips.
▸ What should you eat in Jaisalmer?
Desert food, which is a real cuisine rather than a menu of hotel Punjabi standards, though you have to go looking for it. It was worked out for a place with almost no fresh vegetables: dried beans and berries from the scrub cooked with chilli and dried mango, gram-flour dumplings in a yoghurt gravy, hard wheat balls baked in embers and crumbled into ghee and lentils, and heavy gram-flour sweets. Drink the thick saffron and cardamom lassi at least once. Almost everything is vegetarian, and the rooftop restaurants with a fort view mostly sell the view rather than the cooking, so eat at ground level and go up for a drink afterwards.
▸ Is Jaisalmer worth the detour from the rest of Rajasthan?
It is the furthest-flung stop on the circuit by a distance, and the honest cost is a long night on a train each way, or the better part of a driving day from Jodhpur. It is worth it if what you want is the desert and a fort that is still a town. It is arguably not if you are collecting palaces and lakes, because Udaipur and Jaipur do that better and are far easier to reach. The people who regret coming are the ones who arrive expecting another Rajput city; the ones who do not are the ones who came for the sand, the stone and the quiet.
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