Delhi Diary Day 7
Last day here for a while.. and it was a memorable one. Through circumstance and coincidence my plan for today loosely coalesced round Old Delhi - Jama Masjid and a walk through Khari Baoli. In the morning though I attempted to send some postcards (time will tell whether I did a very good job of that) and made my way to Agrasen Ki Baoli, an ancient step well with an onsite Mosque and a reputation for having interesting local graffiti. It’s a 10 minute saunter through a modernish commercial part of Delhi neighbouring Connaught Place.
It is a side of Delhi I haven’t really seen much of, but it soon gives way to the medieval/Mughal well.
As far as holes in the ground go it’s quite nice to look at, and the history is interesting, but I’m not sure I would bother if I was on a more focused visit.
Lunch was at a South Indian cafe in the vicinity called JUGGERNAUT. I had a really good Roast Garlic Dosa.
A quick metro hop across to the violet Heritage line, and I emerged at the Jama Masjid stop. The metro station chucks you out into the middle of a busy street market.
Roughly speaking, around the Muslim landmarks in the city the street food is more meat focused — various arrangements of skewered meats and big pots of mutton biryani dominate proceedings, and the scent hangs heavy in the air. The Eastern entrance to the Mosque looms over the whole bazaar.
When you reach the Mosque it’s time to take your shoes off and pay the tourist tax. Today’s reparations include purchasing a mandatory ₹300 photography pass at the entrance. It’s a bargain. A real hallmark of this era of architecture is the big entrance set some way back providing a glimpse of what is to come.
The emperor Shah Jahan was also responsible for building the Red Fort, Taj Mahal and a few other mind blowers. When you get inside there is a big open courtyard with a little pool in the middle and then the Mosque building on the edge facing Mecca.
If you are absolutely completely out of your mind you can pay a few rupees to climb the tight staircase up one of the minarets.
I fired up Google maps and headed out the North steps and followed the plotted route to the Spice Market. It’s a super busy heavily built up area full of lots of very narrow and occasionally covered streets so the GPS on the phone is a bit whacky, but after a few false starts and dead ends I managed to muddle my way through to Khari Baoli Road.
I wished I had not had eaten quite so well at lunch as a few food stops caught my eye on the way. Especially as the lanes opened out on to Chandi Chowk Road round Paranthe Wali Gali — a popular street food haunt. I pushed on to the Khari Baoli road and the spice market. A real busy hustling vibe overcomes the streets (pace is languid elsewhere) and the spices get right up your nose. Large quantities of spice, dried fruit and nuts, pulses, teas, so on are being humped around all over the place, mostly by hand. It’s impressive to see how smoothly it all operates, though you do have to defocus a bit on what initially looks like pure chaos.
I headed back more or less the way I had come, down Chandi Chowk Road to the Metro. One of the Delhi speciality street food dishes I had yet to try was Aloo Tikki Chaat, a spiced mashed potato patty fried and then served with yogurt and chutneys and other accessories. I walked past someone inhaling an excellent looking example and managed to drum up the appetite somehow, and I was glad I did because it was fantastic. To get the good stuff you need to have a conversation that goes approximately like this:
SPICEY?
nod
SPICEY SPICEY?
nod
SURE?
nod
SPICEY SPICEY.
SPICEY SPICY.
Metro home, packed and ready to go. Dharamshala tomorrow! I have absolutely loved Delhi but I feel ready to move on. I’m really glad I didn‘t try and buzz all over Northern India trying to see everything in a week, I have really appreciated having the time to scratch the surface of Delhi.
