A day of bazaars in the heart of royal India

JAIPUR, India — The 18th century city of Jaipur completes the Golden Triangle of marquee stops for first-time visitors to North India.

Less spread out than Delhi, Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan, the heart of royal India, with an old walled city filled with faded pink buildings and crowded bazaars.

When the Hindu emperor Jai Singh II built Jaipur in 1727, he envisioned a planned urban city, with a system of main streets and market squares, and encouraged artists and traders to settle here.

Walking on both sides of a long street that leads from the main gate to the City Palace is the best way to experience a side of Jaipur that hasn't changed all that much over the centuries.

Silver craftsmen, sweets makers and spice sellers work in tiny stalls under covered walkways. Side streets are devoted to workshops turning out pottery, bangles or flowers.

Crossing from one side to the other means dodging a wall of rickshaws, motorcycles, camels and cows.

Look for an opening, close your eyes and go.

"Hello, hello," I hear someone call. An Indian woman grabs my arm, and we cross together.

Craft stalls line the streets leading to the palace. The touts are relentless, but after some hard bargaining, I buy three small beaded evening bags as gifts for friends for $1 each.

Afterwards, we climb to the top of the pink Hawa Mahal or "Palace of Winds," a five-story building only one room deep where the ruler's harem could look out little windows at the streets below, without being seen.

It's hot and crowded, so we're tempted to hire a rickshaw and ride back, but decide to walk instead and wander through the Tripolia Bazaar.

Barefoot men sit cross-legged inside sari shops waiting for customers, and the rare foreigner who wanders through is rewarded with surprises.

We watch as a man breaks long lengths of sugar cane into small pieces and feeds them into a metal contraption that turns the pulp to shreds for sugar-cane juice.

Next to him, a man dressed all in white sits surrounded by piles of red, cloth-bound books filled with blank pages. He drinks water from a copper tea pot.

A few streets away, we happen upon a group of men making milk and flour dumplings over a coal fire.

"You try," one of them says, handing us two sweet dumplings the size of small snowballs.

"How much?" I ask.

When he answers, I know we've finally managed to veer off the tourist path.

"No money!" he insists. "No money!"