Jaipur Shopping

It was a day I knew was coming, no matter how much I tried to put it off with other plans. With only a few days left in Jaipur, and a reputation for great shopping, I can avoid the inevitable no longer.

Our vacation would seem incomplete if we didn’t spend some time carpet shopping, as over the years, that has become a tradition. Aside from that, we could use a couple of additional souvenirs for the boys, and apparently some more of the item Ang has most recently been torturing me with – pillow covers (at just a few dollars each, is it really necessary to look at each individual one of the hundreds the typical store has stacked up?), but those will have to wait.

Having done this several times now, we figure we can outsmart the tuk-tuk drivers that route you to particular shops in order to get the biggest commission on whatever you buy. So instead of telling them we want to go to a rug store, we pick a random place (a Holiday Inn) and have them drop us off at the front gate. Giddy with our cleverness, it takes a few minutes to dawn on us that we are on a random road out of town and that nothing around us looks remotely like a rug store. Undaunted, we head off on foot, using the Force to guide us.

We soon come across a few shops selling pottery and handicrafts, and against all odds, one of the people standing around on the sidewalk not only sells carpets, but has 5 brothers that also sell carpets. And so begins a sordid journey through back alleys, dark stairways, dilapidated “factories”, and residential neighborhoods, as our extra helpful guide takes us from shop to shop, looking at raggedy, industrial rugs that the salespeople assure us are “top quality” (of course you would clean part of a hand-knotted silk rug with bleach, “the color will come back when it dries – it’s no problem”).

Broken after a wasted afternoon, we fumble our way back to the Holiday Inn, which is the only landmark we know in the area. They give us a few pointers regarding some places nearby, and having come all this way, we rally for one more try.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog with an important announcement….Angela has purchased a rug. I repeat, Angela has purchased a rug. After four years, seven countries, and countless hours of his life that her husband will never get back, the quest for the perfect rug has ended. We now return you to the blog already in progress.

Unbelievably, after torturing the poor workers that have to fetch the dozens of carpets and carry them to the viewing room, we are able to settle on a winner. But, like Forrest Gump, having run all the way across the country and not knowing what to do next, we just turn around and run some more. By the time we leave the building (well after closing time, and with the sun long gone), we have not one, but two rugs on their way to Redmond.

In a victorious mood, we take a tuk-tuk to a restaurant that we have seen recommended a few different places, and toast our success over an extremely tasty meal (that it is the first real dinner we have eaten in a few days makes it even better).

Sorry, no pictures.