Jaipur before the shops open

The old city of Jaipur, before ten in the morning.

The pink is paint, left over from a welcome.

A city laid out on a grid

Jaipur was founded in 1727 by Sawai Jai Singh II, a king with a taste for astronomy, and it was one of the first planned cities in India: straight streets, wide bazaars and square blocks inside a city wall. The colour came later. In 1876 the old city was painted a terracotta pink to welcome the Prince of Wales, and shops in the walled city are still expected to keep it. The walled city is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Morning in the bazaars

Early, the shutters are half up and the lanes belong to ordinary errands: tea on a small stove, a man sweeping in front of a jeweller’s, milk arriving on a bicycle. The bazaars specialise. Johari Bazaar is jewellery, Bapu Bazaar is cloth and shoes, Tripolia is brass and bangles. The Hawa Mahal, the Palace of Winds, stands on the main road: a pink honeycomb of 953 small windows, built in 1799 so that women of the royal household could watch the street without being seen.

Why travellers begin here

Jaipur is one corner of what tourism calls the Golden Triangle, with Delhi and Agra, and for many visitors from abroad it is their first sight of Rajasthan. Indians come for weddings, gemstones and block-printed cloth, and for the forts. Amber Fort, on a ridge eleven kilometres north, was the seat of the kings before the city was built. Jantar Mantar, Jai Singh’s open-air observatory of giant stone instruments, is also on the UNESCO list.

Getting in

Jaipur’s airport has flights from across India and the Gulf. From Delhi it is about four and a half to five hours by road or train. In the old city, take an auto or a cycle rickshaw to one of the gates and walk from there. A composite ticket covers Amber, Jantar Mantar, the Hawa Mahal and several other monuments over two days.

For the morning

• See the Hawa Mahal from the street, or from a café opposite, before nine.
• Most shops open around ten or eleven. Walk before they do.
• Go to Amber early, before the heat and the tour buses.
• Bargaining is normal in the bazaars, less so in government emporiums with fixed prices.

By noon the shutters are up and the pink hides behind the shopfronts. The morning is when you see the city it was built to be.