The boulevard, Kingdom of Dreams
With the weekend rolling by and the mercury touching new highs, figuring out what do to over the weekend can be a chore. Although there are many malls that you can haunt, mall fatigue does set in, even for a retail junkie. Ahem! A visit to Culture Gully at the Kingdom of Dreams in Gurgaon is a fun way to beat the heat.
A faux beach created near the Goa and Kerela stalls
Everything at Kingdom of Dreams is large and grand, and the entry to Culture Gully is no different. The grand entryway, set inside a 20ft high golden lotus flower studded with tiny mirrors evokes images of the grandeur that must have been enjoyed by the royals in times of yore. Step inside the boulevard, and you’ll be forgiven for thinking that you are still outside and wondering how the temperature is so cool. The air-conditioned boulevard is topped by an atmospheric blue sky. Some skilful wizardry (read lighting and decoration) ensures that you get a feel of being in an open-air marketplace – the sky and lighting change throughout the day to closely mimic the outdoors.
Mumbai stall - the entrance resembles a Mumbai local train
Spread across 90,000 sq. feet, Culture Gully is a visual treat of theme restaurants and architecture styles from 14 Indian states. Each kiosk is designed to showcase the best of the state. The Punjab stall, for example, has a woven cot and truck parked outside the dhaba; you enter the Mumbai stall through a local train compartment, which is topped by the façade of the Victoria Terminus and Bollywood movie posters. Towards the end of the boulevard are the Goa and Kerala stalls, complete with a faux beach and a beach shack serving up grilled sea food.
Each state also has a handicraft store where you can pick up some cool 
souvenirs, ranging from earrings to clothes, coffee mugs to home ware, and glass bangles to branded diamond jewelry (go figure!).
On the second level, you’ll also find a fortune telling center, with tarot card readers, palmists and astrologists.
Walk around the boulevard and poke around the stores, catch a street performance, get your fortune told, get a family portrait sketched – there’s a lot for you to do at Culture Gully.
The stall selling kati kulfi
Once you’ve explored it all, decide where you’d like to eat – warning: it might just be a tough decision to make! With restaurants from all 14 states offering up local cuisine, you can choose to experiment or stick to what you know. The mutton biryani at the Lucknow stall, filter coffee at the Kerala stall and kati kulfi opposite the Punjab stall are highly recommended.
It’s best to get in early, as the place starts getting very crowded towards early evening.
If you want to make an entire day out of the trip, catch a show at Nautanki Mahal, which is currently playing Zangoora. It’s worth every penny! (Click to read a review of Zangoora.)
Oooh, this looks very cool. How wonderful to be able to go there.
What a cool idea! I love that the lighting changes with the day. I would love to explore. Sounds like a place where I could easily spend all of a day or more.
All day, easily! Not so sure about more..
Wow, that is a Destination! What a great way to spend a couple of days!
Just about a day would do it 😉
It really looks like a wonderful place! Kingdom of dreams seems to be a really cool and dreamy place to go with the kids!!
Yep, it is!
Where exactly is this place? Looks like so much fun and full of rich culture to learn from. *runs off to check Google* Thanks for sharing it through your eyes. Odds are I won’t be traveling any time soon or not much farther than my own backyard so these types of posts are a thrill to read.
Well, armchair travel can be fun too!!
This looks like such a cool place!!! And I agree— the mall gets old (and I am a fashion junkie!), I like that this place will inspire and make you think. Love it!
Yeah – it’s very artistically done…everything has been thought out and executed flawlessly!
I love the look and sound of this place! It would be wonderful to explore, especially with my kids along. Guess I’ll have to add it to my loonnng list of “places to go”!
Oh yes! It’s a great place for kids too!
What a wondrous place, thank you for letting us travel there with there, even if we can’t make it there in person (yet)!
Here’s hoping you can make it here in person soon! 🙂
I LOVE this… I wish we had a place like this to go to in the UK (near to where I live).
Ah well…there are a lot of places you have in the UK that I wish we had here in India! 😉
Wow, the places I’d never have seen without your travels. That is cool. Have a good weekend!
Glad you can live vicariously through me 😉
I want to go!!! stumbled
Thx! 🙂
I got to know about the place when I the first time I visited gurgaon with my cousin. We enjoyed a lot there. We have seen Zangoora Show which was amazing a class act by actors, then we moved to culture gully and tried having various food dishes out there starting from Mumbai , Delhi ending up with Assam food stall. Overall It was a great experience. I have written my experience of KOD in my blog.