Day ... what day is it now?? As we had the free day in Delhi today, we decided to be adventurous and go out - on our own and unescorted. Now before you all go into koniptinions, we went next door (quite literally) to a shopping mall called Ambience. Now to give you all some idea of scale (and apologies to those non-Melbournians), imagine Chadstone Shopping Centre... now simply multiply by three ON TOP OF EACH OTHER!!! This place is crazy - only outside the streets reek of raw sewerage (at 10 am mind you), and then this... Anyway - we wandered in at 10 am hoping to grab a cuppa only to discover that the stores dont open until 11 am - but then close at 9.30 pm. As nothing was open, we went next door (again, quite literally) to this place called DLF Promenade. Now if the Ambience was big - this place is HUGE. And filled to the eyeballs with your ordinary, average, garden variety labels youd find in any shopping centre back in Oz. We wandered around in bemusement only to decide to go next door (yep - you guessed it - quite literally) to DLF Emporium. Another MASSIVE building filled with uber high end labels/stores like Jimmy Choos, Burbery, DKNY, Versace, Porsche (who knew they also had a clothing line???), Swarovski and so many others that SWMBO will remember. Were talking some serious SERIOUS money here. To give you an idea, if the cars that were driving up to the drop-off at the front in the other two were average middle class Indian family cars (Fiat Punto, Toyota Corolla, VW Polo, Tata), well think of AMG Mercedes, M-Series BMW, V8 PETROL 200 Series Landcruiser Sahara VXs - plus a smattering of other high end European brands... And of course, each vehicle is driven by a personal driver, and each party has their own escort (sometimes armed)... This place is crazy (sorry - did I say that already?!?!). After thinking we had wandered into someones Indian dream scape, we came crashing back to India as entry to each and every place required full airport style security - but both SWMBO and I are now old hat at being padded down, frisked, and wand-swiped, we just wander in, lift our arms to the cormorant position and let them do their thing. Not quite finding what our eclectic tastes were after (pfft!!), we thought we go back to our hotel - and reknew our brief affair with Delhis thick miasma pollution: can you smell it?!?! cough cough! Oh and of course, theres the obligatory armed soldiers complete with locked and loaded AK-47s and/or rifles and/or shotguns: all behind 10mm thick reinforced steel armor plating. And all this is less than 1 square km... I guess the most important thing is that although all the westerners (and I say westerners as anyone whos not a skinny white person walks around as if this is all normal) just takes all this in their stride much like any of us walking down the street in suburban Oz: this is simply their normality, and we - like the adventure seeking skinny white people that we are, soak it all up in shock, awe and amazement. Dare I say - I love this place!! (HA - I bet you thought Id say this place is crazy). Like so many other places Ive been to, Ive come to realise it might not work for us, but it just does! But I leave the best to last: without question, the Indian employees here: in the shops, stores, cafes, restaurants, and hotels have the brightest and best smiles because as they say in Indian: customer is God, and if we please our customer, we please our God. No rude words, no harsh looks, no curt glances, just endless time, patience, and that neverending sea of smiles...
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:08:19 +0000