Shop Till We Drop…

If you can find a parking space. Most stores in India don’t have parking lots. Heck, the ones that even have a few spaces out front have a paid guard to watch them to keep the riff raff from parking in them. But it doesn’t really stop anyone from just making their own spot wherever they can…

The first time we went shopping was to buy bottled water and a stove for sterilizing instruments at the dental clinics. The first thing I noticed was that the store was tiny but had a little bit of everything. We also noticed that they had at least 5 guys working at the store. One guy to follow you around and help you find things. One guy to carry all your things to the cash register. Two guys to ring up and one to bag all your things or carry them to the car. Then it seemed like there were just 1 or 2 guys that just seemed to be there to talk to the rest of them.

On our trip home from Achinkovil, we stopped at what I thought was a fabric store. It turned out to be a clothes store.

You just pick from the stacks of fabrics already packaged and ready to take to the tailor to have made into clothes. I picked out 2 sets of fabric here that I had made into two outfits while in India. The tailor was in a tiny shop in an alley up a narrow flight of stairs. All the girls used treadle sewing machines so that they could work even when the power was out. They only charged about $8 to make me an entire custom tailored outfit!

There were also shops with clothes ready made…

GV said I was like a butterfly flitting from one rack to another. LOL 

Oh my gosh! This store even had parking!!!

 

Most stores we shopped at were not nearly this big or elegant. Most stores were tiny little shops filled full of interesting things and interesting people who really want you to buy something. People in India assume that if you are white, you are also rich. Yeah, we probably disappointed a lot of shopkeepers in India… ;o)

at some places you know exactly what they have because it’s hanging right there in front of you…

 

I bought my cup rack here but what I really wanted was this 3-level dish rack! If only it could have fit in my suitcase… :o(

While in Idukki, we went to a shop to buy tea and spices right where they come from. They had so many teas! It was so hard to not buy them all! There were even bags of green, just-picked tea leaves sitting outside.

 

I loved how this store was decorated!

The entire time we were in India, we wished we had a map. Eventually, we stopped at this “bookstore” to find one. The store was more like a news stand than a store. You simply told the storekeeper was you were looking for, then they went back and found it on the shelves. It took a few trips back, but eventually they found what we were looking for. We also couldn’t resist the Dr Who book for the boys. :o)

   On our travels, we saw LOTS of very fancy and expensive jewelry stores. But what I really wanted was some cheap costume jewelry to take home. Then we found the perfect store: the imitation jewelry store!

there was cheap Indian jewelry everywhere! I loved it!

 

I love this one of the 3 guys shopping for jewelry! ;o)

 

The medical stores (aka pharmacies/drug stores) had all sorts of interesting things. Some looked like they had been in the case for YEARS!

Some of the things just made me smile… :o)

 

But my favorite store was the grocery stores! I just loved looking at all the foods!

  toilet paper isn’t very popular

 

neither is breakfast cereal

Lots of toothpaste and brushes! That made Dr Rick happy!

 

Hmmmm???

No, I didn’t just love the grocery stores because they had chocolate. But I did buy it more than once. ;o)

 

the dairy section. I found it amusing that they kept the chocolate in a refrigerator case and the dairy products in bins by the front door. ;o)

Thankfully we found space to get everything we bought back to America!