A London bus in a Delhi shopping mall

Stranger and stranger! I went today to the shopping malls and crowded market streets of Noida Sector 18, part of a city of a million plus which is now the eastern-most part of Delhi (though it's across the state border in Uttar Pradesh). It's a middle class area, largely prosperous but not on a par with the tree-lined elite colonies and housing developments of South Delhi and Gurgaon.

​The mall I popped in to bore the name ...

.., but judging by the array of western shop names, there's not all that much of India in the place.

I popped into a coffee bar - Costa, of course - for a flat white, and ended up forking out 240 rupees (that's not far off £3). So some of the prices are more firangi than desi as well as the brands.

But the most remarkable sight was a London bus - OK, it was novelty for kids, but bearing the label 'LONDON BUS' - perambulating round the mall. And you could buy tickets for your 'bus' ride at a mock-up of a red London phone box.

It's amazing the way that these iconic London institutions have found a resonance in Uttar Pradesh!

Overwhelming the Sector 18 skyline is a vast new development - mall and offices, by the look of it - which is evidence of the investment still pouring into this part of India's capital.  Cycle ricks still ply their trade in its shadow, reflecting the deeply uneven development India is undergoing.

On the streets, there's still the food carts and the mehndi stalls. This woman was doing something I'd never seen before - having mehndi applied to both hands at once. 

I asked if there was to be a wedding in the family. No, the woman replied - it's my wedding anniversary!

Noida is a beneficiary of the most spectacularly successful of Delhi's innovations - the metro. It's cheap, clean (really!) and ultra-efficient - and Noida is now no more than half-an-hour from Connaught Place, the heart-beat of Delhi.

It's so much quicker than a London bus!