Back in the car after Patan, and off to Bhaktapur. 13km from the city, around the ring road and off through the rice paddy fields and corn farms. This Durbar Square was the finest of the three, best for last I suppose. The many temples were in better shape, and renovations were ongoing. There are three squares here, and we elected to visit the top two, as the third is a bit of a walk away and Jim wanted to save his ankle. More temples, these ones with giant staircases leading up to them, lined with statues of animals and warriors. The second of the squares was near the first, down a short passageway crowded with souvenir shops. I discovered the famous high-quality pashmina shawls, the ones that come only in natural colours and feel like warm clouds when you touch them. I’d seen one once in Dubai with my Finnish friend Tuula, where the salesman had pulled the full-sized shawl through a finger-ring to show its fine-ness, and which cost, to the best of my recollection, 23,000dirhams, or about $6-7,000. I quickly asked the cost of these ones, and was told 6,500rupees. Quick head-math, about 350dhs, or less than $100. !!?!?!? We continued with our touring, loving the second square. It had another temple with guarded steps (this one with fierce warriors ahead of the elephants), and a medieval-looking house sloping with deteriorating walls and sinking grass roof. We found a shop selling Unicef-sponsored paper goods, and bought ten calendars and some packs of greeting cards. I got dragged out before I could delve into the photo albums and hanging lamps, probably a good thing. Jim got some t-shirts for the kids, and we went for lunch in a lovely courtyard.
I mulled the pashmina idea over lunch, and decided that I couldn’t pass up the high quality at the crazy price. We all trooped back to the shops, only to find a different salesman in place, and a price-jump from 6,500 rupees to 9,500. Jim got frustrated with the lack of sympathetic conversation, and we went to the next shop. There we got the lowdown on the special pashminas: they are made from the chin hair of a rare Himalayan goat (so it's a goatee?) Seriously. There are two different qualities of the goat-beard pashminas. If you go for the actual chin hair, the fabric will never pill and the colours are only the natural goat colours (cream, beige, slightly darker beigeish brown, and soft grey); the price for regular weave is 6,500rupees/$85, and for four-way weave, 9,000rupees/$120. Further down the throat you get a coarser product that will eventually pill, and those ones come in brightly-dyed colours; they cost 4,000 rupees/$60. There were also some special thicker weave ones with contrasting stripes (all natural colours), done for some Italian retailers, that were three times more than the first ones. I decided to go for the regular weave (not so heavy), in the darkest brown, and got a lesser-quality one in a lovely teal colour as well, it’s darn soft and very pretty. Jim did the bargaining and we got a few extra rupees off. Once you get going, the salesman tries to keep adding things in, and I was mighty tempted by a rich pink cashmere poncho in a light knit, but I do live in Dubai after all! How many warm items do I really need?
I rounded out the shopping with a funky shoulder bag made of old rice bags for Chloe, much to our guide’s amusement. He couldn’t quite believe that I knew in advance that these were just rice bags, but we assured him our daughter would love it.
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