Khari Baoli Spice Market

Khari Baoli runs west from Chandni Chowk towards Fatehpuri Masjid and has traded in spices and dried goods for centuries. It is a wholesale street rather than a visitor market: porters push handcarts through gaps that barely exist, sacks of red chilli, turmeric, cumin, cardamom and asafoetida are stacked in every doorway, and dried fruit and nuts are sold by the kilo from open bags. Behind the shopfronts, courtyard trading buildings such as the Gadodia Market hold further floors of wholesalers around a central well of light. The chilli dust in the air is not a figure of speech; people cough their way along the lane.

What you actually see

• The chilli and turmeric stacks - open sacks lining the shopfronts, sorted by grade and by origin.
• Gadodia Market - a courtyard trading building behind the street, with galleries of wholesalers above.
• Dried fruit and nut sellers - almonds, walnuts, figs and dates sold in bulk near the mosque end.
• The handcart traffic - porters moving sacks through a lane that was never built for the volume.

When to go

Weekday mornings from around ten are when the trade is fully under way; the street winds down in the late afternoon and much of it shuts on Sundays. October to March is the tolerable season in Delhi. Walk in from Chandni Chowk metro, because no vehicle you hire will get anywhere near the middle of it.

Honest expectations

The chilli dust genuinely irritates eyes and throat, and anyone with asthma should think twice. The lane is crushingly crowded and you will be shoved aside by carts. Retail buyers get wholesale-plus prices and quantities start large. Touts offer rooftop views for a fee. It is a workplace, and nobody there is performing for visitors.

Nearby

Chandni Chowk's food lanes, the Jama Masjid and the Red Fort are all a short walk east.