This week, I will be mostly wearin'....traditional Indian garb

Today: Old Delhi, and I have to say that it's worlds away from Pahar Ganj, though only ten minutes on foot. Old Delhi is, for me, where 'The Real India' (registered trademark) begins. I was met with scrupulous honesty - one chai-wallah even called me back after I walked off without my 5 Rs. (about 6p) change and 'Where are you from?' is not a prelude to the hard-sell - although one doesn't hear it often as most don't speak English. Luckily my Hindi is coming along nicely - 'Namaste, kyaa aap haathi bach-te mayng?'/ 'Good day, do you sell elephants?'. I've smoked a beedi - sorry, mum -, a sort of Indian cigarette (known as the 'poor man's puff') favoured by all the cycle-rickshaw wallahs and workmen which consists of a fragment of tobacco wrapped in a single banana leaf. Don't worry, I didn't smoke them all - I gave the rest away to children (is he joking?).

The undoubted pinnacle of my saunterings around Old Delhi - during which I was not hassled once, though I attracted my fair share of curious looks - was Jama Masjid, a vast mosque about half a mile away from the Red Fort. At the call to prayer, a long, loud, chilling wail booms out from the loudspeaker system across the whole of the old city before descending into those chunnering Arabic syllables. The sound, so different from homely church-bells, is awesome and utterly, utterly foreign - a sudden reminder that you have journeyed halfway across the planet to a place where things have panned out very differently. The mosque itself is breathtaking, a crop of huge onion-domes and spires framing a central courtyard. The sense of of scale there, like everywhere else, is augmented by the Indian dust that hangs in the air and makes the great curves of the architecture seem somehow very far away - almost in another age. Never fear - I have pics aplenty to show you all when I get home.

One other local institution I have more than a few pics of is a certain Miss (Adriana? can't be) Shah, approximately 5 years old, who marched up and introduced herself to me as I was sat waiting for the prayer-hour to finish, demanding 'photocamera'. Her and her family maintain and live beside a small monument at the gates of the mosque, and she was very sweet. Soon a few other kids were gathered round and some men left their rickshaws to come and have photocamera too. I was really very cheerful in handing over my rupees this time.

I've kitted myself out in full Indian garb and am contemplating giving away my t-shirts. The loose, flowing garments traditionally favoured by Indians really do help in the heat, acting as a handy fan-cooling system for you and everyone within a ten-metre radius as you flounce ridiculously down the road. Most of the young Indians, besides the Muslims on their way to prayer, are meanwhile trying to look as Western as possible - in shirts, jeans and leather shoes, and with mobile-phones sellotaped to their ears. It makes for some curious stand-offs when you blunder out of a sidestreet, traveller cliche number one, and into a group of young lads propped jauntily against mopeds or car-bonnets. Bafflement abounds on either side. Likewise, I was laughed at when I smoked the beedi - why, when I can afford the prestige of cigarettes? It makes you question yourself. Why is it fashionable to look dishevelled in the West? Over here, scruffiness means poverty.

I've learned that most Indians judge a man by his footwear. The spanking new Merrells I bought attract envious glances all the time and I'm frankly relieved that they're starting to get a bit battered. 'Hey man, nice sandals' is supposed to be a compliment, but I can't quite escape the sarcasm these phrases would have in a Western mouth and feel like a rich tit every time. More or less every transaction is implicitly guilt-inducing, and I have to resist an urge to pay well over the odds for any small service. You can sense the silent question every time you haggle, and I usually end up acquiescing far too easily, especially at the end of those dangerous rickshaw voyages as the wallah hunts around for change.

Small coinage, incidentally, is surprisingly hard to come by over here, and one of the reasons why you have to be selective with the beggars you donate to. Paying at a restaurant with a 500 rupee note for a meal which cost 117 (not my fault, the ATM has saddled me with hundreds of the buggers) will entail a scramble, sometimes with a boy running off down the street to change up.

I've had to withdraw 20 000 Rupees - I think that, shockingly, the amount is more than the average yearly Indian wage - because tomorrow I set sail for the historic city of Jaipur (not known for its cashpoints). At 6am. Sob. Paid up at the Hotel Namaskar today and the four nights have cost me only 850 Rs. - pretty much a tenner. One of the reasons why it was so cheap was because I volunteered to eschew a bathroom on the second nite and got the hotel's cut-price room at 200 Rs. per nite. There's a communal toilet I can wash in (in the sink in the communal toilet) and it's really not that bad, well worth saving 50 Rs. a night for. It has a fantastic window down into the street and a fully-functional fan which is this very moment drying my snazzy/silly Indian shirt.

And Delhi belly? I know you're all dying to hear....well, as yet, not a sniff (so to speak). In fact, I'm starting to think that the Rough Guiders are a bunch of scaremongerers, because I've been eating and drinking all over the shop and feel great (famous last words). Just as well really because I'd probably have to go out the window.