Most of the countries that you visit, especially around Asia, have a local market or several of them, like in India, where you can find treasures and you can have the opportunity to communicate with local people. Most of the times it is the only place and only way you can talk with the locals, with their limited English, enough to sell their merchandise. Despite this you can have a nice, basic conversation with them. The barrier of the language is very big. During the years that I have travelled I have created friendships with lots of people around the world in markets that I have visited several times. Getting to know about the culture and the kindness of the people is so enriching.
If you like to walk around markets and discover beautiful things, like me, Delhi offers lots of them, and each one is different to the other. If you would like to have a good idea of the local crafts, you can first visit the National Museum of Handcrafts.
The Main shopping area in Delhi is Connaught Place that has the savoir fare of the Colonial times (designed by the British). This area was easier for them and their families to shop in and also, during the Colonial times, to avoid shopping in the very dirty and chaotic, difficult to navigate, Old Delhi local markets. In addition, it was a place where the British could find the merchandise that they wanted.
In the area and in front of the iconic Imperial hotel, you can find the Cottage Industries Emporium (with fixed prices) that offers a very big selection of crafts from around India. In particular, it has a big variety of classical fabrics for clothes (dresses, kurtas, sarees) and for the house (big selection of bed covers, linens for the table and for the beds, pillows). It also has typical Indian objects, jewellery, a big selection of teas like Darjeeling, Assan, etc, packed in very nice Indian fabric bags, that make a very nice present for family and friends for less than 5 dollars. If you don’t have much spare time during your stay, in these shops you can get typical crafts from all around India.
Next to the Cottage industries there is a lane of several Tibetan shops that have interesting merchandise. You must bargain there, as you must do everywhere that does not have fixed prices. Shops indicate if prices are fixed. In the Tibetan Market I have found very beautiful Nepalese necklaces, and other objects.
If you need to repair shoes, in front of this shops there is an excellent shoe shiner that for 3 or 4 dollars will repair your shoes, bringing them back to new! He is also very good if you only need them polished, especially men’s shoes. Every trip I take my husband’s and my shoes to repair. In minutes they are ready! During a visit to the market I happened to have a broken sandal. The shoe shiner saw I was walking with the broken sandal. He called me and told me that he would repair it. And he did! From then on, I am always taking things for him to do. My driver in Delhi always asks me if he has to stop to leave him work.
In case you need an ATM there are several in the area around this shop that take European or American cards to give you cash. Not all the ATM’s work with international cards. The ATM exchange is often the fairest, since the banks generally take a lot of commission or give you a bad exchange rate.
It is always better to take bigger bills to exchange than small, especially in Asia, since they often give you better rates. Check in case the Foreign Exchange counters charge a commission before doing the transaction. Avoid, if you can, to change money in the airports or hotels where the exchange rates are worse. In case you need to change in these places, exchange small amounts, or take local money from the ATM.
When you travel to Asia it is always necessary to take cash with you if you plan to go shopping in the markets. In the shops it is easy to use credit cards, especially Visa and Mastercard. Amex is generally only accepted in expensive shops and hotels.
Also interesting is Baba Kharat Singh Marg. There you will find good merchandise from other Indian states: in 3 buildings you can find the precious Varanasi Silks, silk of Bangalore, at Cauvery. There are crafts of the state of Uttar Pradesh in a shop call Gangotri. The custom jewellery shop of Andhra Pradesh is Lepakshi. If you need fabrics, head to the Handloom House, to purchase Handwoven and colored fabrics (www.handloomhousedelhi.com ). It is an emporium selling rolls of colorful cottons and silks made by lots of artisans around India.
If you want to find local fashion and design, you can visit Hauz Khas Village.
Visit the Khan Market, you will find lots of nice things.
You can have a massage at a reasonable price (not Ayurvedic) at Spa 55 (flat no 55) tel +919871340882.
Have a look in Anokhi (32, Khan Market) you will find nice things for the house, very good quality cotton dresses, sarees, scarfs with classical Indian prints, with very reasonable prices and a big variety. As they state: “For over 40 years Anokhi has been well known as an alternative role model for ethical and environment friendly business practices and the ongoing revival of traditional textile skills”.
Go to Good Earth if you are interested in beautiful things for the house, objects, linens, table and bed, beautiful plates and tea cups, oils for the body, teas and a very nice selection of things, go to the ground floor. If you go to the first floor, you will find exquisite dresses, jackets and scarfs. The prices vary from normal to expensive (high quality). On the third floor you find the café and restaurant where you can have a very nice meal, with very good options, and nice deserts or cakes you can eat with a tea. The prices are reasonable for the quality and the tranquility you can eat there in a nice ambiance and good service.
Oma (shop no 8 a) very nice objects for the house.
FabIndia (“at Fabindia we celebrate India, and endeavour to bring all that we love about India to customers around the world. Since 1960, Fabindia has collaborated with master craft persons across India to create beautiful handcrafted products using natural materials. Our endeavour is to place traditional crafts techniques within a contemporary context”). This shop has 3 floors and have a vast selection of clothes for women, men, and children. A big variety of things for the house. Also teas and local spices. The garments that they sell have been dyed and printed in rural India, using indigo dyes. Read the instructions before washing and using them to remove any surface dyes.
There are also lots of boutiques, beautiful scarf shops, jewels, shops that sale paper things, that make a very nice present to take back home. There are also bars and foreign exchange places.
But if you have a good eye, you should go to the colourful Janpath Market, which is next to the Tibetan market in Janpath. It is the craftmanship from Mecca, its stands offer ethnic fabrics, beautiful silver jewels, and lots of other things, there are little shops one beside the other on the main street or booths where the vendors show their merchandise. Here you are able to find beautifully embroided bags, skirts, pillows, scarves, bed covers, colourful table cloths, embroidered old borders that can be used and treasured on evening coats or dresses. Or embroidered antique parts of old dresses that you can use to make new tunics. Lots of jewellery, in silver and semi-precious stones. For instance there are very nice earrings, some have a typical Indian looking like a little umbrella, bracelets in one piece, tied to the ring. That makes a very interesting present and also some furniture.
The secret is to start bargaining from half the price they ask until you find an acceptable price. They normally charge the 30 to the 50 per cent more to the tourists.
The Shankar market, near Connaught Place, is full of nice fabrics per meter and tailors to make clothes. So if you are looking for Indian fabrics, sold by the metre or sarees, this is great place to buy them and very reasonable prices. There are also lots of tailors although I have not tried them.
As I always recommend, when you travel around Asia it is best if you are planning to make clothes to bring a sample of what you would like to have done. This way you will have a good result. The local models are normally looking very nice for the local people, but not for Europeans, unless you have the same shape.
For men it is easy to get a very good suit made, and at good prices. If you take one you like they can copy it. My favorite tailors are in Yangon (Myanmar) and Michael Jackson (not his real name) in the Pat Pong night market in Bangkok.
In case you use tailors around the world, always negotiate the price beforehand, and get it in writing, so as not to have nasty surprises when you collect the items. And fix delivery a day before you leave, since they are often late. My experience around Asia has been always that of receiving things at terrible hours in the middle of the night. This is because I normally order too many things, for me and the family! Although Michael Jackson always says is going to be ready on time, we are always having last minute things to put in the luggage. He has taken me around Bangkok on his motorbike to buy more fabric, generally from the Jim Thompson outlet, so as to have enough to finish a garment. Also part of the fun!
Same situation with my tailor in Beijing. A very funny couple that we found a few years ago in a little shop in an underground station. I have known them for some years and I will put the address when I write about China and Beijing. The tailor makes himself some things and the wife has other people that sew too. They always arrive at the last minute with the finished clothes.
First trip when we met them I had a very amusing experience. I was there during the very cold month of February with my brother. During a visit of the Great Wall he saw the soldiers dressed in very nice and warm long military coats. He decided that he would like to have one. We started the search for one of these coats and since he is tall and the average Chinese person is not, we decided that it was better to have one made by a tailor.
With the difficulty of communication and the little English they use to speak at that time in China (today is better) my brother had to find a way of explaining to the tailor what he wanted. He saw a soldier wearing the coat outside the shop in the metro station, so he grabbed him and pushed the soldier into the tailor’s shop, to show them the model of the coat he wanted. The soldier resisted and the tailor, horrified to see my brother pushing the soldier into their shop, shut the door. So funny the situation. In the end the wife of the tailor tried to sell my brother a coat that she bought already made at triple the price she paid, adding a piece to make it longer.
In the end Michel Jackson, my tailor in Bangkok, made it for him, new, and super nice! And then put the picture of my brother with the coat in the window of his shop (in the red light district! Je…;je…. ).
The wife of the tailor in Beijing always brings the clothes that she has organised before her husband, so we get stuck with her until he arrives with the remaining clothes some hours later, because she doesn’t want us to pay him, (he spends the money drinking and with other women it seems) so it is complicated to get rid of her.
Once she brought the things to our hotel room and sat on the bed, saying how nice the room was and asking how much it cost (she wanted to increase the prices for the work she had done). It took us sometime to persuade her to leave.
Another time in another hotel she said that we were movie stars. Fortunately, my husband was there and so I invited her to have a cappuccino in the bar of a very trendy hotel in Beijing. She was very happy so I was able to leave her waiting there until her husband came later, with the excuse that my husband was waiting for me upstairs. She was sitting very properly while I was there. When I left and turned the corner she extended herself on the chair more comfortably and immediately the barman when he saw her alone, sent her out like a sputnik! She is a character.
If you are looking for normal every day clothes and shoes, such as sneakers, go to the Palika Bazaar which is un underground air-conditioned market located below the inner circle of Connaught Place.
Dilli Haat (to get in you have to pay 100 rupees – about US$1.50) is my favourite. It is located in one of the most important commercial centers of South Delhi. The 6 acres of land on which this sprawling complex is situated was salvaged as part of a reclamation project and transformed into a magnificent plaza. Extensive foundation work, small thatched roof cottages and kiosks with a village atmosphere have made the place into an attractive multiple center.
Dilli Haat is very good if you want to buy things from all over India. There is a very good selection of clothes and things for the house. I recommend going there and it is very easy to find what you like. It is an open market, with very nice selection of things that changes every month! There are very good prices, if you are prepared to bargain. The shopping is easy and relaxed. In particular, I would recommend the beautiful wool carpets, scarves, mother of pearl objects, jewellery and cashmere.
In a market, just in front of the Dilli Hat, you can find colorful sarees, to make dresses, or curtains for the house, that give an exotic look with little money (a saree is between 5.8 m and 6 m long).
In Dilli Haat go and visit Zahoor Warsi at shop number 35, which is down the end of the market. He has many shawls of different quality, variety and prices. Sometimes the shops move, so if you cannot find him send him a whatsapp to the following number: +919971133774.
You disembark from your car and leave your vehicle for a cycle-rickshaw to navigate Chandni Chowk. There is no other comfortable way to navigate through the narrow lanes of this 300 year old market.
Today it is busy market selling an extraordinary variety of items. Silver, jewellery, aromatic spices, leather, fruits and medicinal items. You can observe roadside dentists at work: they display their bizarre array of equipment and false teeth You can also see the barbers in action. Note the people selling drinking water. This is an excellent introduction to the organized chaos, that is the quintessentially Indian! Welcome to incredible India.
You have not seen real chaos until you visit Chandni Chowk. On one occasion I saw a small Uber car trying to go down a narrow street (It should not have been there) that was not really any wider than the car. The problem was that there were rickshaws, people and motorcycles trying to go in the opposite direction. They reached a sort of impasse at a junction with other rickshaws, motorcyles and people coming from the other road. I managed to walk by and left them to sort out the situation.
If you are keen on beautiful and fancy laces, crochet lace, sarees, ribbon motives, labels, fringes, mirrors to sew, feathers, or any piece that you can imagine to embellish clothes, this market is a paradise. Also, if you make clothes, you can find the best and biggest assortment of pieces that will embellish anything you are planning to do.
Once you get in the shops it becomes difficult to decide what to buy, because of the variety and the quantity of things that are inside these shops. Also, if you don’t buy it is just fascinating to have a look of them. I travel a lot around the world and always look for these sorts of markets, because I sew, and I love to embellish clothes, but I never saw a place full of such beautiful things, hand and machine made. It is a unique experience.
The only other markets that have a large selection of things, but not the same, although interesting are the ones in Shanghai and in Bangkok (I will write about them, in another occasion).
Aggarwal Zari house (shop 2904, Kinari Bazaar, Chadni Chowk), has a very good assortment of things and prices. It has a large selection of borders of different widths which cost from 200 to 600 or more rupees per 10 meters).
Gupta Zari Emporium (shop 2050, Kinari Bazaar, Chadni Chowk; email guptazari@yahoo.co.in ) has some exclusive fancy laces and very good feathers, with a big variety and many colours as well as other beautiful pieces.
Aggarwal Zari Emporium (shop 2900, Kinari Bazaar, Chadni Chowk; aggarwalzari@yahoo.co.in) has a beautiful and big variety of fringes (from 800 rupees for 25 meters) and other things.
Also visit the shops that sell bijoux for Indian weddings. When Indians get married the party lasts for many days. All the family, the friends and the neighbours are invited. The bride is covered in jewels which can be real or bijoux depending on the wealth of the family. The bride is always covered in them. In this market you can find incredible pieces of bijoux and costume jewellery for these occasions, that look real. They are jewelled on front and enamelled painted imitation in the back too (see below)! I always get some special piece, the prices are very reasonable.
Try G.S. Jewellers (shop 2167, Kinari Bazaar, Chadni Chowk) which has a good selection of designer jewellery. Their speciality is Kundan and Jadau Bridal Jewellery.
There is a large shopping centre to the south of Delhi in Vasant Kunj, called DLF Emporio. It is about 40 minutes by taxi from Connaught Place. In addition to the usual shops that you will find in all shopping centres in the world there are many interesting shops selling locally branded clothes and jewellery that are certainly worth visiting. Excellent quality clothes by local designers at very reasonable prices. See some of the pictures below.
Shops in other parts of Delhi
Shaw Brothers (established in 1840) has a good selection of shawls, pashminas, jamawar silks, embroidery and carpets. Address: Block D-47, Defence Colony, New Delhi; tel +91 11 4123 2000; email shawbrothers@vsnl.com. Talk with Javed +919891760329.
Another shop you may want to visit is Andraab, which has a splendid collection of scarves, stoles, shawls and bed covers. The quality is excellent, but it is pricey. It also has branches in Jaipur, Udaipur, Mumbai and Jodhpur. Address in Delhi is: 2 Main Market, Nizamuddin West; tel +91 11 4165 2232.