Video Post Number 1 - Old Delhi

From the roof tops of Old Delhi Spice Market



Bread making




Rickshaw Ride

Old Delhi Rickshaw Ride

We went for a cycle rickshaw ride through Old Delhi on Saturday. This was my first time in one of these contraptions. Basically, they are a bicycle at the rear of which is a buggy-like seat for two a la the style of a horse and trap. The rickshaw man then peddles away like mad to haul two passengers around. They come in two basic models - one which has a metal frame around your person offering something to hold onto and some semblance of a shell space around the passenger, and the second type which does not have this. The one without the frame seems to be forever slanting forward and balancing on its seat without anything to hold onto is very much an acquired skill. Care must be taken that no part of you extrudes from the area of the buggy seat else you risk injury by passing rickshaws, motor bikes, cars, buses, and between the hours of 10PM and 6AM, lorries.


At first, Delhi traffic appears to be very disorganized, haphazardous, with little or no rules of the road or lane discipline. What I have come to call The Delhi Symphony is continual with horns of all descriptions blaring every few seconds.Now most of the older cars don't have wing mirrors so much of the tooting is to indicate that the approaching vehicle from the rear is about to over/undertake the slower one in front. It seems to work. I've actually come think people are very careful drivers in the circumstances. I've yet to see an accident - a lot of extremely close maneuvering is required by all drivers of all types of vehicles to weave in and out and through the mass of traffic jostling for position on every inch of the roadway. Remember that in addition to all this mechanical mass are people, men, women and children, going about their daily life, shopping, working, walking, crossing roads and generally mingling with the traffic. I think one could adjust to driving here but I wouldn't particularly want to as I suspect that when you returned home you'd probably be considered a quite aggressive driver.

Old Delhi is traversed by Chandni Chowk, an wide street with numerous alleys leading off from it into warrens of shops and bazaars selling all sorts of things. 

One of them is the Spice Market. Immediately upon entering the alley you are engulfed in the aromas, in today’s case the primary nasal onslaught was from chilli and cinnamon. The spice dust is in the air and it really hits the back of your throat, resulting in much sneezing, runny noses, and coughing for a few minutes until you acclimatize, then wow you comprehend what you are smelling. After a few more minutes you are well adjusted and loose your sense of smell discrimination. We went up to the roof to see the size of the spice market, essentially a square building with a great many very small stalls from which a vast array of different spices are for sale. I'd have a field day, if I was remaining here in Delhi, walking slowly round these, asking all the vendors what each thing is and how to use it in cooking. I tried a bit of Hindi asking what the name of each was. Sometimes I knew but wanted to know the Hindi word, mostly I could work out what the spice was and although I go the Hindi name this made me none the wiser as to what it actually was. naturally there were many we'd all recognise from Asian stores at home - pepper, cumin, coriander, but others in forms unsual at home such as turmeric root rather than ground turmeric, dried ginger root rather than fresh. I am so looking forward to eventually being able to experiment and cook in my own kitchen in Orissa.

The other place we stopped was to visit a Jain Temple. The Jain religion is quite strict but does permit visitors into their places of worship as long as you adhere to certain rules including no leather, no menstruating women, no cameras, and you do your ablutions before entering, washing your hands and mouth. The inside of the temple was in use with people lighting candles, incense and walking up their deities and wafting incense over them. Upstairs in the temple were an amazing set of painted glass mosaic pictures depicting thee life of their Lord. These were very beautiful, very colourful and the work quite intricate. I wandered of to a corner where I saw a man working and realised he was a painter. He becond me into the alcove to see the work being done. I climbed up the the dome, an area about 10ft x 10 ft with a fluted dome about where another man was seated painting the walls. He told me that he had spent 1 1/2 years painting the dome and expected to spend another 3 years painting the walls. Their paint is made from crushed stones and gold leaf is also used. It is a shame in many ways that no photography is allowed as the craftsmanship was of a very high standard and I would have loved to have posted a picture as my word cannot do it justice. The colours are beautiful clear pure colours and the drawings executed with such artistry I was really impressed by this and their dedication to the work.

Delhi belly or just a case of a rottten egg?

Well it had to come, didn't it?

So first, a little about our eating arrangements during this month in Delhi. Through the week we have breakfast and lunch at the cafeteria in the Institute's hostel where we are staying and are left to our own devices in the evenings and for lunch and dinner at the weekends. The food is totally vegerarian and is always accompanied by a massive amount of rice and bread. Pancakes, breads - parathas, naans etc abound. Sometimes the veg dish is potato based so the amount of carbs is very high. I'm finding the cooking style quite monotonous and very liquid, there is nothing much to get you teeth into veg wise. The one delightful taste I discovered when we went out as a huge group with the office staff here on Saturday night is a south Indian dish called Rassum - it is served at the start of the meal, in a glass, to drink. Its consistency is like a clear soup. It is made from lentils and coriander and is delicious. I must try and hunt out a recipe. I managed to get some ginger tea that evening as well, served south indian style with metal cup and saucer for pouring from on high - Tuareg style to aireate the tea. The containers were extremely hot, but I proudly showed of my skills and managed to pour from about a couple of feet high straight into the saucer and back again without spilling a single drop!

The restaurants along our local such street are basic and I could see a few worried doubtful faces as we approached them for the first time - but before you jump to conclusions, they are not where my problem has come from! In the UK we'd call them "greasy spoons". I think the best meal we have found so far has to be the night we found beautiful large yellow fin tuna steaks in one of the greasy spoons and got the cook to fry it simply without adding curry spices to it! Otherwise everything has basically the same sauce on it. Being a bit of a foody I am so far quite disappointed with the cuisine - the range of vegetables is limited but this may be because it is winter - mushrooms, onions, spinach, potato, cabbage, peas and chickpeas - this seems to be what is currently available, along with the ubiquitous paneer, which is nice but not every day. Chicken is the only meat around and as expected quite boney, but when we have managed to get it it has been very nice, including a spit roasted / tandooried type one night. So for our dinners we have been successfully finding something locally so far but some folks have ventured further a field to the likes of Khan Market, Dille Haat etc but these are a factor more expensive and required autorickshaw/tuk-tuk rides to get there and back. These are more set up for the tourist market.

What we have found locally is a nice coffee shop for those who need their regular caffiene fix of cappuccino, expresso or the like and for me it does a passable cup of nice darjeeling tea. It seems to be run and frequented almost exclusively by Sikks with the addition of ourselves. Unfortunately it is compabably expensive with a cuppa clocking in at the grand total of 47 or 49 rupees - Exchange rate is around 77 rupees to the pound. Not a lot in Western terms, but having one's daily fix could blow your volunteer allowance for Delhi of 8000 rupees for the month. If you compare that to the 4 rupees for a chai in the Insitute's training building's cafeteria you see the difference. So comfy chairs and coffee/tea become a once a week treat.

Unfortunately, Sunday breakfast's boiled egg was, I think, the culprit and I have had today off, laid up with horrid stomach pain. It could have happened anywhere so I'm doing the usual 'don't eat for 36 hours' to fast the bug out of my system. Grumbling guts kept me awake all last night and the attempt to eat breakfast this morning was way the wrong thing to do. But I have had worse, way worse!

My room mate has returned tonight with fruit and digestive biscuits from Khan Market for me to break the fast with tomorrow, but so far is refusing to tell me how much I owe her! Clearly more than our local market street. But 12 hours after the attempted Monday morning breakfast I feel much better and am sitting up in bed scribbling this down for when I get my next turn on our shared mobile internet dongle. I hope this hasn't been too squeamish for those the sensivite amongst you but I am determined this blog will be an honest reflection of my time here.