Nepal Day 4 - Finally, some shopping!

We were supposed to take a day trip ending at Nagarkhot for the sunset, but Shrek, our guide was unavailable on the 7th day, so we rescheduled for the 6th. Then the 6th was too rainy and cloudy for the sunset…so we opted to take the trip to Pokhara instead. Ram (the other Raj) met us at the hotel to make the arrangements & talked us into spending the night there, good suggestion as it turned out. Ram took me off to the tour office to finalize the plans & then do some shopping at the fair trade boutiques, while Jim stayed at the hotel to get some emails answered (work being far preferable to shopping). On the way to the tour office in Thamel, the tourist shopping district, I spotted some yarn in a shop window & so started my shopping trip there. It was still raining, so my flip flops kicked up all the nasty dirt and oil from the crowded streets, but I retraced our drive and found the yarn shop. I'm pretty sure it was all from India, and not any local Nepali yarn, but I bought some recycled, multicolored sari yarn, a silk skein with lots of loose fibers and a rayon and/or polyester skein that was much smoother, plus a skein of raw silk in a pretty green colour.

I love yarn

Almost back at the tour shop, I spotted some cute handbags, and settled on a pretty sheepskin shoulder bag in soft brown with pink and coral embroidery. I started haggling with the Kashmiri shopkeeper over the price (1300 rupees/65dhs/$19), but then it turned into a big thing of looking over all the pashminas (4,000rupees and up), and he laughed when I said I would take the bag without haggling if I didn't have to buy a pashmina.

new favorite handbag

A nice young tourguide named Burgi accompanied me and the drive on the shopping trip to the fair trade shops. I'd read about them in Lonely Planet, a group of shops in Patan that focused on selling handicrafts at fair prices with fair treatment of the craftspeople, and of course that idea appealed to me. There are millions of shops in Nepal selling crafts and souvenirs, which could be from anywhere and are selling at completely arbitrary prices depending on where you are shopping and what the shopkeeper thinks you'll shell out. The fair trade shops have fixed prices, solid information about provenance, and fair pay to the makers. Burgi didn't seem to be aware of the shops (he'd started out as a trekking guide), but picked up cards and brochures everywhere we went. At first it was a bit awkward having him trailing about, but it was pretty great having someone carry the stuff and find the car for me! The first shop was four stories high, with fabrics, linens for the home, felted slippers, furniture, knitted stuff, metal ornaments, pottery…pretty great. I got a cute mug, some woven aprons, some fabric, a few felted things. Burgi helped find the next shop, a scary u-turn away, and I spotted some smaller shops that hadn't been listed in Lonely Planet. There was a lovely handmade paper shop (some small notebooks & wrapping paper), a mixed shop (a calendar, bag for Chloe and an awesome felted bag), another mixed shop (handmade soap & some felt finger puppets). Maguthi was a large shop that had silver jewelry, leather goods, paper, and all the souvenirs you see on the street but with blessedly fixed prices. There I bought a gorgeous red leather handbag supporting sufferers of leprosy, some paper stuff, some silver jewelry, and a singing bowl. I looked at a Buddha statue and a brass prayer wheel, but wanted to look around some more before committing. Ends up I should have got them there, oops. The singing bowl is lovely, it has a relief of buddha inside. There was one more shop, Dankhuta Sisters, a little shop selling mostly handknits made by a small town group of women. They opened their shop in Kathmandu with the help of some start-up grants and are now self-sufficient. I bought a lovely white triangle lacy shawl made from banana fibers. They had some neat stuff made from nettle, but it was quite a bit pricier and felt scratchy. I'm pretty sure the girl was telling me it would soften up when it was washed, but the banana shawl was so nice (and cheap!), I didn't risk it. Unfortunately they didn't sell the yarn, too expensive and better for them to make the value-added products.

I ended up with several bags of goodies, and spent only about 12,000rupees/600dhs/$175. The shops left me wanting to start an import business back to Canada!

more of the booty