Khari Baoli Spice Market

Khari Baoli is one of Old Delhi's most intense and unforgettable sensory experiences — Asia's largest wholesale spice market, a centuries-old bazaar of narrow lanes at the western end of Chandni Chowk, stacked floor to ceiling with open sacks of red chilli, turmeric, cumin, cardamom, black pepper and saffron.

• It takes its name from a 16th-century stepwell (baoli) of brackish, salty ('khari') water completed around 1551, and the trading quarter grew up around it over the following centuries beside the Fatehpuri landmark that anchors the far end of Chandni Chowk.
• This is a working market, not a tourist set-piece, and that is exactly its magic.
• Entirely vegetarian in its trade — spices, dry fruits, nuts, herbs, teas, rice, lentils and pickles — it supplies much of North India, and many of its shops are run by the ninth or tenth generation of families whose businesses date back to the 17th and 18th centuries, still known by old serial numbers.
• Its landmark building is the 1920s Gadodia Market, a great multi-storey merchant courtyard whose upper galleries and rooftops give the classic overhead view of the spice trade below.
• To walk here is to step into a living Mughal-to-modern trading legacy.
• For vegetarian travellers the food is a joy — the legendary Chaina Ram Sindhi sweets, the chole bhature of Gole Hatti, and the pure-veg Paranthe Wali Gali are all beside the market.