What is worth seeing in Jaipur after the forts?
Jantar Mantar, the eighteenth-century observatory of masonry instruments; the Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing at Amber; the working craft bazaars of the old city; the stepwells at Panna Meena ka Kund and, two hours away, Abhaneri; Jawahar Kala Kendra, Charles Correa's arts centre; and the private museums — Amrapali, the Museum of Meenakari Heritage and Gyan — which hold jewellery, silver and textiles and are rarely crowded.
Most itineraries give Jaipur a day and a half and spend it climbing. Amber is worth the climb, and so is the view from Nahargarh at dusk, and Jaigarh has the largest cannon on wheels ever made, which is the sort of fact that survives a holiday. But the forts are the part of Jaipur that was built to be seen from outside, and the city underneath them was built to be walked through.
Jantar Mantar
Sawai Jai Singh II built five observatories; this is the largest and the best preserved. The instruments are masonry, at full architectural scale, and they work — the great sundial is accurate to a couple of seconds, and you can watch its shadow move. It is a rare thing: a piece of eighteenth-century science you can read with your own eyes rather than take on trust.
Go early, before the stone heats and the shadows shorten.
Hand block printing, at Amber
The Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing occupies a restored haveli below the fort. Blocks are carved from teak, one for each colour; the cloth is printed by hand, registration mark by registration mark; and the dyes are largely natural. There are usually craftspeople working, and the museum lets you try it badly yourself, which is the fastest way to understand how good they are.
If you want to see what the finished tradition looks like at its most ambitious, the historic textiles and costumes in the private collections are the other half of the story.
The old city, as a working district
Jaipur's bazaars are still organised by trade. Johari Bazaar is jewellery, Tripolia is metal and lac bangles, Maniharon ka Rasta is where the bangles are actually made, Chandpole Bazaar is marble carving. This is not a heritage reconstruction; it is where the work happens. Walk it slowly in the late afternoon, and look up: the shopfronts are modern and the buildings above them frequently are not.
The Museum of Legacies, in a restored haveli on Kishanpole Bazaar, is a good place to stop in the middle of it.
Water
Panna Meena ka Kund, near Amber, is a sixteenth-century stepwell with symmetrical criss-crossing staircases and no railings, and it takes ten minutes. If you have half a day, the Chand Baori at Abhaneri is about two hours from Jaipur and is one of the deepest stepwells in India — thirteen storeys of steps descending to green water. Both were infrastructure. Neither was built to be beautiful, which is why they are.
Architecture of the last century
Jawahar Kala Kendra, Charles Correa's arts centre, is laid out as a nine-square mandala with one square rotated out of place, exactly as Jai Singh's plan for the city itself was displaced by a hill. It is one of the most intelligent buildings in India and it is free to walk into.
The collections nobody queues for
Albert Hall and the City Palace are full, and rightly. The private museums are not. Amrapali holds silver from across the subcontinent; the Museum of Meenakari Heritage takes a single Jaipur technique and examines it properly; and Gyan Museum, in the Sitapura industrial estate forty-five minutes out, holds 2,500 objects assembled by one collector over five decades — the nine galleries run from jewellery and silver to manuscripts, coins and arms.
All three want notice before you arrive. Gyan is by prior appointment only, and that is enforced: people have made the drive and been turned away at the gate. Write before you travel and the visit is guided by a curator, which is not something the large museums can offer.
One more thing, if you have an evening
Eat in the old city rather than near the hotels, and buy a kachori from a shop with a queue of people who are not carrying cameras.