THE LUXURY TRAVEL
MAGAZINE FOR INDEPENDENT
TRAVELLERS

Old Delhi is a raucous cacophony of cars beeping, rickshaw bicyclists ringing their bells, ear-wax cleaners, dentists and barbers plying their trade to pedestrians on the street, children splashing and washing their hair with a hand-pump on the corner. The narrow alleyways are festooned with hundreds of electric cables intertwined in a way that makes you wonder how long they've been there and when they'll come down. Cows, goats and dogs walk the streets and browse the shops as if they were patrons. Hawkers and beggars 'request' your assistance. Food vendors roam the streets with their portable kitchens.

There's a wedding accessories street, a spice street, a kitchen supply street, a fabric street, a sari street and a flower street, organized in a city where 'organization' is not often apparent to the naked eye. And all of it takes place amid a car-bus-bike-rickshaw-pedestrian-scooter grid-lock in one of the most populated cities in the world.

While the experience of a walk or rickshaw drive through the streets of Old Delhi is reason enough to come, Delhi has more sights than you could possibly see in a few days and prioritize you must. There's the Jama Masjid, completed in 1656 AD, and one of the largest mosques in India. Its three sides are covered with open arched colonnades, each having a lofty tower-like gateway in the center. The roof is covered with three domes with alternating stripes of black and white marble, with its upper portion covered with gold. A walk through the fabled Chandni Chowk (literally, 'Silver Street') is also a nice way to get to know Old Delhi.

It was once the most opulent perfume market of India, but is now a bustling market, good for hunting down textiles, spices, books, musical instruments, and old and new silver and gold from jewelers whose forefathers served the emperors (www.chandnichowk.com). Just don't try to cross the street; it's like mid-town Manhattan rush-hour traffic plus cows and rickshaws and minus the traffic-light signal.

Then visit the Red Fort (closed on Mondays), dating back as far as 1639-48 AD, and built by Emperor Shah Jahan, who also built the Taj Mahal.. Also known as the Lal Quila, the Red Fort is the largest of old Delhi's monuments and its thick red sandstone walls , bulging with turrets and bastions, have withstood the vagaries of time and nature to impress us with the power and magnificence of the Mughal era. Visit Raj Ghat where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated following his assassination in 1948.