India, Sept. 15 -- Udaipur is one of those cities where I can set out with a perfectly sensible plan and still end up stopping every few minutes to look at something. A carved doorway. An old balcony. A tiny shop tucked into a lane. A lake view that makes you forget you were supposed to be somewhere else.

It is also a city where shopping can become part of the travel experience. Not the frantic kind where you rush in, buy something because a guidebook told you to and leave. The kind where the building, the people, the craftsmanship and the stories become part of what you remember.

That is exactly what seems to be happening at Ganesh Emporium. The Udaipur institution began in 1980 as a tiny 100-square-foot shop after Vipul Shah's parents...