Express Avenue Mall, Chennai

• There seem to be more employees than customers in most stores. The staff follow you around closely. It’s fucking annoying. Sometimes they try to help, but mostly they just get in the way and make it very uncomfortable to browse.

• If you have a bag with you, it has to be handed to a security guard at the door or left at the baggage counter if they have one. – not your handbag though – that would be silly. They check that as you leave though.

• In a supermarket they will pack as much as they can into one bag and squash your bread in the process. They then write the number of bags on the receipt and a security guard checks the receipt on the way out and puts a little rip in it.

• In the supermarket, again there are more staff than customers and they push product in your face in the hopes you will buy it. Fucking annoying.

• Most aisles are impassable due to either a)piles of stock waiting to be put on shelves b) five staff members with ladders stocking the shelves or c) three staff members standing around chatting. If you dare say excuse me you will get an evil look or a product shoved in your face.

• People will look in your trolley out of curiosity. They are not discreet about this. They will look at you and then have a really good look at your trolley and then back at you. Rude and annoying.

• In Chennai, If you pay by credit card it can be a lengthy process. They take the card and swipe it. Then write something in a book. Then take the book to some credit card dude in another part of the store. Then they will come back and you have to sign that piece of paper and then they write something else down and then you have finished the transaction. This is all done at the slowest possible pace. This is more annoying if the seven people in front of you pay by credit card.

• In Mumbai, they have embraced EFTPOS, thank all the gods of efficiency.

Sunday at Big Bazaar supermarket, Chennai

• If you pay cash, it is likely that they will not have the right change. They will ask you for change and if you don’t have it they will get out their own wallet and pay from there or call someone over to get more change. I could understand this if I was buying something for 50 rupees and was paying with a 1000 rupee note. But no. This happens when I buy something for 430 with a 500 rupee note. (Sorry, but all my small notes are in the bag they confiscated at the door.)

• Some things are cheaper here, like most grocery items. Electronics are about the same price.

• A lot of the time the notes are held up to the light to see if you are giving them counterfeit money. I was once accused of trying to pay with souvenir money.

• You can get wads of souvenir money from the souvenir shop.

• Nothing opens until 10am

• All shops are the biggest or most famous.

• I have so much more to tell you about shopping in India but this is a start
  

  Spencer Plaza. The Oldest Mall in Chennai

Most of the above was learnt in Chennai. So far Mumbai is a bit better, but I still get followed around in every store by an annoying unhelpful shadow.

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