Погода: Джайпур, май

Ranthambore-forum threads on booking a safari independently describe the process as manageable without an agent, posters calling the official booking site the standard route though slots can be genuinely competitive. Regulars call May counterintuitively one of the strongest months for tiger sightings, punishing heat pushing animals to waterholes considerably easier to spot than dense cover. Posters recommend an early or late slot, midday heat uncomfortable for visitors and quieter for wildlife. Regulars describe an open-sided Gypsy as offering a better shot at photos than the shared Canter, worth the extra cost if sightings are the priority. Posters call cotton clothing, a hat and real sun protection standing advice given how intense the afternoon sun runs. Regulars recommend booking well ahead, May slots increasingly sought-after. The record: 40.3C days feeling like a punishing 41C, 26.8C nights, a scant 2.5 days of measurable precipitation and 31 percent humidity.

Regulars are consistent that humidity essentially disappears from the region once September ends, this month marking the real start of Rajasthan's comfortable travel season - cool mornings and evenings bookending a warm, pleasant midday stretch. Our row backs that hot, genuinely dry read, 34.5C reading as a hot 36C, over 21.2C nights, with rain minimal at 22.7mm across just 1.9 days and humidity down to 53 percent. Regulars are specific the back half of the month marks the real start of winter's approach, mornings and evenings turning distinctly cool while daytime from late morning to late afternoon stays warm and comfortable for exploring the forts. This counts among the better months to start a Rajasthan circuit before peak-season crowds arrive. The record: 10.3 hours of sun, an 11.6 kph wind and AQI 87.

The board's March advice has a hinge in it: the weather is good up to Holi and the temperature starts climbing after it - so check where the festival falls in your year, because it moves with the lunar calendar. Our row averages 32.5C by day, which at 38.7 percent humidity actually reads a degree cooler at 31C, dry heat rather than heavy. Mornings and evenings are the usable hours and the afternoon is the one to spend indoors; regulars plan sightseeing around it, with a hat and sunscreen rather than woollens. Nights still hold 18.4C. Rain is 8.8mm across 3 days. The season's cost is the air at AQI 96. The record: 11 hours of sun and a 14.2 kph wind.

Regulars describe November here as warm days and cool nights, roughly 12 to 25C, with the drop arriving after Diwali and a warm jumper wanted for the evenings. Our row runs a little above them at 29.6C over 15.4C, a fourteen-degree swing at 54 percent humidity, and rain is finished at 9.3mm on 1.3 days. The number they never discuss is the one worth knowing: AQI 139, the worst in this collection, and the cost of the same still, dry, post-monsoon air that makes the sightseeing so comfortable. Anyone sensitive to air quality should weigh November against February, which the same boards rate equally. The record: 9.7 hours of sun and a 10.4 kph wind.

January in Jaipur is the cold, clear end of the Rajasthan season, and regulars make a distinction that matters: the north Indian fog that grips Delhi at this time of year mostly spares Jaipur, and where it does appear it is an early-morning mist that lifts by mid-morning. The fog problem here is not sightseeing but moving - trains get cancelled and flights delayed through the last days of December and the first ten of January - so build slack between cities. Their temperatures, 15 to 25C by day and 3 to 10C at night, bracket our row's 22.8C and 8.8C; sweaters, a jacket and a scarf are the list. Our row adds AQI 152. The record: feels-like 21C by day and 6C at night, 2.2 precipitation days and 9.5 hours of sun.