Jaipur Travel Guide

Jaipur is the one big Rajasthan city you can do properly in a weekend from Delhi NCR. It is about 280 km down NH48, four and a half to five hours on a good day, and it packs three hill forts, a walled old city painted terracotta pink, a working royal palace, an 18th-century observatory and some of the best street food in India into a triangle about 15 km across.

The city works in layers. Amber, 11 km north, is the old Kachwaha capital with its enormous fort above Maota Lake and Jaigarh on the ridge behind it. Nahargarh sits on the Aravalli scarp directly above the modern city and is where everyone goes for sunset. The walled city below, laid out on a grid in 1727, holds the City Palace, Jantar Mantar, Hawa Mahal and the bazaars of Johari, Bapu and Tripolia, all inside the pink walls. Outside them is a sprawling modern city of five million with the Albert Hall museum, Patrika Gate, cafes in C-Scheme and the new hotels.

The vibe depends entirely on when you go. From October to March the mornings are cold and clear and the light on the forts is extraordinary; the afternoons are warm and fine for bazaars. From April to June it is 40 to 45 degrees by noon and the city is only doable at dawn and after dark. The monsoon is humid but green, and the forts are dramatic under grey skies.

Jaipur suits first-time Rajasthan visitors, families, food-focused travellers and anyone who wants a heritage weekend without a long drive. It is also a very good motorcycle destination: the Amber to Jaigarh to Nahargarh ridge road and the ride out to the Sambhar salt lake are proper riding.

My take: Jaipur rewards early starts and punishes tourist traps. Be at Amber when the gates open, walk the walled city before the shops do, eat where the locals queue, and skip the ethnic-village dinner shows. Do that and it is one of the great cities of India. Do it at 11 am with a tout and a camel you did not ask for, and it is a hot, expensive mess.