Every travel guide tells you to visit Amber Fort. Fewer tell you to be there at 6am, when the light is still orange and the elephant procession hasn't started and the fort belongs to the security guards and the early-rising pilgrims and you.
Jaipur rewards the early riser in ways that no afternoon tourist discovers. Here are five things you will miss if you sleep past 8am.
1. The old city before the rickshaws
By 9am, Johari Bazaar is a wall of sound and movement. At 6am it belongs to the chai wallahs and the sweepers and the temple priests and the occasional goat. The pink sandstone really is pink in this light — not rose, not amber, actual pink — and you will understand immediately why someone called it that.
2. Nahargarh Fort at sunrise
The sunset from Nahargarh is famous. The sunrise is better and has a fraction of the people. Park at the northern bastion. Look back at the city as it wakes up in the valley below. Bring a flask of chai.
3. The block printers at work
The workshops behind Tripolia Gate start at 7am. The printers use carved wooden blocks, natural dyes, and a technique that has been unchanged for four centuries. They don't advertise. Walk down the lane off Tripolia Gate until you smell the indigo.
4. Amber Fort before the queues
Entry opens at 8am. The queue for the elephant ride — which you should skip — starts forming at 7am. But walking up the ramp before 8:30am means you have twenty minutes in the Sheesh Mahal (Hall of Mirrors) almost alone. Almost.
5. The kabutar khana at Chandpole
The old dovecote tower near Chandpole Gate is home to several hundred pigeons that take flight together at dawn. It lasts about four minutes and means nothing in the guidebooks. It is worth setting an alarm for.
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