No place represents the culture and the true essence of Rajasthan as beautifully as Jaipur does. A single visit to this magnificent city will bless you with a wealth of knowledge and beautiful sights to cherish for a long time. This article talks about everything you need to know about a visit to the ‘Pink City’.
Jaipur, fondly called the ‘Pink City’ is a tourism powerhouse. It receives the highest number of visitors a city could single handedly see, and rightly so because this city never fails to enthrall any wandering soul visiting the city in the hopes of witnessing all the great things they have heard about the city. Jaipur delivers what it promises which is why the flow of people to the city keeps increasing with each passing year, both first timers and regular re-visitors. If you are visiting India from overseas and you first land in Cities other than New Delhi, then it is best advised you take a flight to Jaipur to save time. In fact, you can also save some money if you are lucky enough to grab one of the cheap flights from Mumbai to Jaipur. Unless you visit during the peak season, you should not worry about shelling out too much on flights in India.
Jaipur is best approached from New Delhi by road. It takes about 4 to 5 hours by road depending on your speed of travel and stoppage along the way. There will be a lot of stoppages along the way, in case you hire yourself a private taxi as the road from Delhi to Jaipur is filled with picturesque landscapes of the hills and sand valleys, making it impossible to not stop for a picture. You will not find a single bumpy road along the way. Upon nearing the city, the scenes of the hills slowly start to disappear and you begin to see a more uniform stretch of plain grounds. Be cautioned that the summers are extremely hot and humid and a visit during the peak summers are not advised, especially for tourists.
If you pictured Jaipur to be a metro city with high rises and busy traffic, you will be taken a back. The city is still very much old school and resonates a small town feel to it. The roads are small and some areas very badly maintained, and unless you visit the posh area of the city, the rest of the city is pretty much still very much like a town. But that is not why you came to Jaipur for. Unless you have been duped and brought into the city being told that the city extraordinary nightlife scene, everyone pretty much has a good idea of why they want to visit Jaipur – sightseeing.
Once in Jaipur, you can choose to rest for the day and begin your touring the next day. However, if you decide to take a swift joyride along the city before you head to your hotel or some restaurant for your dinner, you will most probably see some of the monuments from the outside. Birla Mandir and Hawa Mahal are pretty much clearly visible from the roads as you travel around the city. You can either choose to hire a taxi for your tour tour the next day or simply book yourself a seat for the Government owned tour buses. These tour buses give you the option of a full day or half day tour. Both pretty much covers almost all the important places to visit in Jaipur. They will probably skip a maximum of one or two sites and stop for shorter intervals in sites as compared to the full-day tour. Whichever you choose, your last destination will be the majestic Amber fort.