Pink, Palaces and Pretending You’re in a Movie: A Visit to Jaipur.
Jaipur has been pink since 1876, when the city was repainted to welcome the Prince of Wales. The shade runs closer to dusty rose on a hazy afternoon. Walk five minutes through the old walled quarter and you'll notice the same tint on shopfronts, on temple steps, on the low walls of a lane where a cow stands chewing beside a discarded newspaper. The colour carries the whole city. It holds up across every street you turn down, and the commitment to it still surprises me each time I round a corner.
Amber Fort sits on a ridge about eleven kilometres from the city centre, and the climb through its courtyards and mirror halls takes the better part of an hour. The mirror work in the Sheesh Mahal is set into plaster so fine that a single candle would carry across the ceiling. Our guide, a man named Rakesh who has worked the fort for nineteen years, pointed out the water channels that once fed the gardens and the sandstone screens carved thin enough to let in a breeze. From the upper terrace the view opens across the lake and the dry hills beyond, and it's worth every step of the ascent. I stopped twice on the way up, mostly to catch my breath and partly to admire the gateways.
City Palace is part museum, part working royal residence. The Peacock Gate draws a steady line of visitors, and the blue and green tiles above the arch are as vivid as the photographs suggest. I waited about twenty minutes for a clear view of it. The royal family still uses part of the complex, and their quarters are marked off with a rope and a guard who knows exactly how long each group will linger.
Hawa Mahal rises five storeys above the main road, its facade a lattice of 953 small windows. The royal women once watched processions through those openings without being seen themselves. Standing below it now, with tuk-tuks passing and a vendor selling cold drinks from a crate, the building reads more like a decorated facade than a fort, though the scale still stops people in the street.
The food earns its reputation. Laal maas is a lamb curry hot enough that the first bite surprises you, and ghewar, soaked in syrup, is best eaten in small pieces with tea. I had both in a single afternoon at a rooftop restaurant near Johari Bazaar and spent the rest of the evening regretting nothing. I told myself I'd eat lightly the next day. That plan lasted until breakfast.
On the last morning I sat on a terrace with a cup of masala chai and watched the light move across the rooftops. A pigeon landed on the railing beside me and stayed there for a while.