Shopping in India can be a crazy experience!! It's probably the nearest I get to understanding how a magpie feels - I want everything shiny and colourful. There are shops that sell every single kind of stainless steel cooking implement you can imagine
and shops full of such colourful, shiny tat which here, in the UK I wouldn't even look at. Somehow in India it's all so very appealing! There's such a fine line between buying unusual and fun things as gifts or for the house and ending up with a suitcase full of rubbish...
The advice I'd give? Take it slowly, don't be rushed in to too much tat and buy fewer - but better - things. And when it comes to haggling... I'm actually hopeless! It's complicated, the whole haggling issue. I was once in a shop in Istanbul with my husband. He was doing a brilliant price of haggling on the price of some cushions and I piped up and said that the price was unfair. Much too cheap!! So I'm probably not the best one to advise on this one. Some shops have fixed prices, the street vendors and markets expect a haggle but it's not always the done thing. If I love something I'm happy to pay the price if met with a tough bargain - and I always regret it if I don't buy something I loved!
And then there are the shops with the interesting or amusing names and signs. I particularly loved this one selling country drugs...
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