Our recent trip to India: March 2004
India has always been a place I
wanted to go to since I saw Passage to India and Ghandi. India was
definitely on my lists of countries to visit. Annalie and me did some
research and decided to visit their Golden Triangle. Delhi, Jaipur
and Agra. This area is rich with cultural heritage and places to see.
I went to India on a fact-finding
mission. I had several objectives. One of the objectives was to find
a good cutter for our facet rough. Another was to buy jewelry for our
stores straight from the source. We accomplished both.
India is a fascinating country
with lots of color and lots of people. We decided to go for 13 days
to give ourselves enough time to do everything that we needed to do
and to find the real wholesale suppliers. It turned out to be a bit
long. India is a good place to visit in small bite size pieces. The
thing that got to us in the end was the harassment from all the touts
when we were stranded without our driver. And believe me there are
many of them in a country of 1.3 billion people. Get yourself a
driver with his own vehicle for the duration of your stay. It is
inexpensive and it takes out the continuous negotiations on prices.
This way you know what you are in for. At first I was afraid that the
driver was going to leave us somewhere after we paid his boss in
full. Luckily they he did no such thing. Three quarters through our
trip he left us for a day to visit home after his daughter fell and
hurt herself. This was the day we were harassed.
We flew to Delhi first and decided
to buy little there because we will be back in a few days again in
Delhi. When I walked into the first wholesaler shop spanning five
stories. I started buying and ended up with ten large boxes of crafts
and curios for my shop. Our first exposure to India was such a
culture shock that it took us two days to recover. I have a policy
that goes something like this. We stay cheap but we eat well. In
Delhi the only budget accommodation is found in an area that has
budget written all over it. Annalie waited in the taxi while I went
and inspected the rooms. She refused to set her foot into any crummy places.
New Delhi is a metropolis in
various stages of urban decay and expansion. It consists of more than
15 cities built over hundreds of years. The last city seems like it
has never been finished. Graceful white columned buildings sat behind
big brick walls, but outside there were no sidewalks, just rubble and
dust. Many of the buildings were streaked with black water stains
from the years of monsoons. Everything in India seems to be in dire
need of maintenance or at least a fresh coat of paint. The area that
we entered at first to look for budget accommodation can be described
like this.
The intensity felt like watching a
rock video. There were hawkers, jostling crowds, blaring Hindi film
music, pigs, cows, goats, chickens, parrots, diseased dogs, bicycle
rickshaws, one-armed lepers, legless beggars and ragged children. The
smells of incense, jasmine and sewage mingled with the delicious
aroma of Indian bread. India is incredulous. No photo or film can
capture all of this bombardment of your senses.
The hotel turned out to be not
much more than a slum. I always ask to see a room. The mattress was
sagging in the middle. The bed linen was dirty and the bathroom
smelled. We started backtracking with a driver that speaks no English
and landed in the hands of one of the touts. I should have read the
travel manual more carefully beforehand. It does warn us about these
touts. We were taken to a hotel that cost us an arm and a leg (For
India). The tout looked happy because he received his commission. He
also arranged car hire for us at a price that was 40 % more than the
going rate. Be warned when you go to India. You can be ripped of on
the first day.
Our first reaction was to arrange
to be out of New Delhi by the next morning. Delhi was just too
crowded for us. We thought that it would be different elsewhere in
India. It turned out to be not so. Everywhere we went there were
people, lots of people. The only still enclave turned out to be the
hotel room.
The road to Jaipur was one long
boring stretch of road with no relenting to either the traffic or the
crowds. The 300 km took almost six hours to travel. Jaipur was
different. It does have the crowds but it also has character. It is
called the pink city because of a brick red wash that has been
applied to all the facades of the buildings. They did this because of
a visit some years ago by British royalty. Lots of old buildings and
palaces gives Jaipur an old feel. We booked in at the hotel Arja
Nivas, which turned out to be a clean well-run establishment. The
staff was not overly friendly but the place was pleasant to stay in
because they keep out the crowds at the gate. I never once received a
smile from the stern guard.
The driver knew where all the good
buying spots were. His English were rudimentary, but he was always
civil and treated us like royalty. Our vehicle looked fine from a
distance but close up one could see that it has been in minor
skirmishes many times. There wasn't a panel that did not have some
dent in it. They say that any new vehicle only lasts two weeks before
the first dent. All the cars were dented to some degree. This did not
seem to bother them at all. Over here in South Africa nobody would be
seen driving around with a dented vehicle. The other amazing thing
was the amount of passengers or goods that can be loaded on one
single vehicle. It is not uncommon to see a whole family on a
scooter. Our driver told us the story of 14 people in a motorized
rickshaw. The traffic police stopped the guy and told him that he
would not fine him if he could just show him how he managed to fit in
14 people into his rickshaw. Even though the roads are crowded we saw
very few accidents. People are tolerant.
We soon discovered that the
drivers would take us to the places where they received the most
commission. That is a tough one to handle. It seems as if anybody
that drives tourist around in India is on the take. Be they a
rickshaw driver or a taxi driver, they are all on the take. I really
struggled with this. I always tried to figure out how to get rid of
the drivers to get to the best spots where I could get to the real
suppliers. After much deliberation and persistence we ended up with
some of the primary suppliers.
Jaipur is a pleasant city with
very good accommodation at a low budget price. The streets of the old
city is fairly narrow with a wall surrounding the inner city from the
outer. These walls have the most fantastic entrances. They create
havoc to the traffic. In every street there are vendors selling fresh
fruit. We were warned not to eat any of this. The problem lies in
waterborne diseases. They wash the fruit in tap water and thus the
diseases. People are friendly all over. Everybody wants to practice
their English. They do not meet many European South Africans.
Let me give you an example of
typical bad spot to buy at. The shop has several tourist taxis parked
in front. The people inside speak several languages. They start to
show you all the poor quality merchandise to qualify you. Once they
have found what you are interested in they phone the real suppliers
to get them to bring their goods to them on consignment for a few
hours. They give you quotes in Euros. This is bad because they think
it sounds less to you. We always asked to be quoted in Rupees. Look
out for stuff with thick bases. They are always filled with cement to
chase up the weight. Ask to be charged by weight and not by piece.
The price from one place to the next can be quite different for the
same item. Have them make up the invoice in front of you and do not
come back for the invoice; they will add 20% to the prices. If you
feel that they are wasting your time just walk out of the deal.
Always trust your gut feelings. At the first place we visited they
told me that dyed chalcedony was not dyed. I immediately lost
interest to buy there because I hate to be defrauded like that. He
told me that it was heat enhanced. Ba!!
The low budget cutting works
amazed me. People sit on the floor when they work. Most grinding is
done by hand. The smallest stones are held in the hand. This type of
faceting is inexpensive and the quality is usually very mediocre. We
saw a 'factory' with over 30 cutters sitting on the floor working in
a low light situation. I believe that one could get budget cutting
done for less than $ 1 per carat here.
Our most pleasant experience was a
visit to a bird sanctuary at Baratphur where we saw some rare crane
species. I added almost 20 birds to my live list. This Bird park is
50 km frm Agra on the Jaipur road. We also saw some monster sized boa
pythons basking in the sun.
People are very religious. Our
taxi driver had a small idol stuck on his front dash. Before every
trip he burned incense to the idol. On the side of the road we
encountered many pilgrims who walked barefoot to go and entreat their
local deity in the temple.
I can give any other future Indian
travelers this bit of advice. Be prepared to pay more the first time
because you will be taken for a ride. It takes several trips to a
locality before one discovers what the actual prices are. There is
money to be made but you have to know your stones. Fake tanzanite's
and dyed rubies and mixed silver are just a few of the pitfalls.
A must do is the elephant ride to
the Amber fort. We made friends with the music gypsy and the elephant
driver. Our elephants name was Onshi. The elephant was 32 years old
and has been transporting tourist around for the last 13 years. My
best photo was the one I took of the elephant driver. He was so
genuine. It can be seen from the photo. He had an uncomplicated
simplicity to him. Sometimes I think that he is fortunate not to be
so loaded with responsibility and information. This was in stark
contrast with the wholesale shop owners who have been around the
block already.
The opulent finishes at the Fort
points to an era when India was a world Empire. They had a good
system of early warning from the lookout points on the protective
wall. The place had its own water reservoir in case there was a siege
to the fort. The elephants are painted in bright colors. The
elephants do not seem to mind this at all. I took great pity on the
performing bears at Fatepur Sikri and the poor overloaded camel
carts. The horses and dogs also seemed to be diseased. Everywhere
there were beggars. It breaks ones heart to see all this poverty.
Agra is not worth an extended
visit. It is a place filled with touts. The only place that is worth
a visit in Agra is the Taj Mahal. It is an imposing structure with a
fascinating story. It was built by the emperor Shaj Jahan, for his
favorite wife when she died as a monument to their love. It reaches
up 55 meters in clean white marble. It has a lot of presence. His son
later imprisoned the emperor when he started with a second tomb in
black on the other side of the river. This was for himself. They only
got to the foundation. His son reckoned that his Dad was wasting
money. If you consider that it took 20 000 workers 23 years to build
the Taj then I reckon the son was right.
It was here in Agra that I fell
sick. I had diarrhea for two days with a fever. I must have eaten
something wrong. We were so careful. But even though we took care I
still fell ill.
India is not a place where I would
take my children for a holiday, too busy and too dirty. The food from
the south is very spicy. Even the Northern Indians complain of the
spice. We would go into a restaurant and order something from the
menu and be surprised at the combinations of taste that they put
together. Our food is downright bland compared to theirs. But an
upset stomach chased us to the more expensive restaurants in the five
star hotels where we ended up with known names like pizza. I have a
picture of Annalie with an 18 inch pancake. This was crispy and delicious.
We ended up not getting any
specimens at all. We bought some stunning gems cut from rough that
came from Idar Oberstein. We met one of the best cutters in India and
bought some fancy cut stones that sold the first day we returned from
India. I also bought several hundred rings and pendants, which are
now on show at my two stores. The buying was very taxing but lots of
fun. You sit the whole day but at the end of the day, one feels
drained and sore all over. I learned a tremendous amount about facet
stones and the real prices of facet stones. This is a field on it's
own that I was untrained in.
India is a Mecca for the serious
buyer of diamonds and facet stones. Labor is cheap and stones can be
bought at affordable prices. We took over some facet rough and this
turned out to be a very good move. Once cut the stones can be sold
very profitably. The thing I missed there was general lapidary
skills. Nobody does any spheres or general lapidary work.
On the last day in New Delhi we
ran into a new guide that turned out to have our interest at heart.
It restored my faith in India. India can be a good experience or a
bad one it all depends who takes you around. This new guide took us
to the antique furniture shops and the antique brass trader. My next
trip I will have to fill a container. There are so many beautiful
things to buy in these shops and the prices are reasonable.
It was so good to set my feet on
homesoil where the roads are well kept and where the smells are more
familiar. Driving home from the airport was sheer bliss. The lack of
horns blowing in your ears and the absense of the continous
bombardment of all your senses was so welcome. I grew up on a farm
and I guess I am not made for the noise of the city.