Sightseeing and shopping

Whilst on our trip to India Lucy and I had time for some sightseeing and a little relaxing shopping. We also took part in a treasure hunt around the city.

There were temples and churches from all different religions.

There was an interesting fort which was a clue in the treasure hunt.

There was a very western shopping mall complete with McDonald's and Pizza Hut.

and lots of smart shops along the main streets

Lucy and I went into one shop that sold jewellery, shawls and other fancy goods. The shawls were displayed on shelves.

The colours and patterns were beautiful. Some had machine embroidery on them, some hooked work or hand embroidery and some the pattern was woven into the shawl or printed on. The hand embroidered obviously cost the most.

We were shown a picture of the Kashmir goats as the more expensive shawls were made with their wool. They look so amazing and cute. 

The shop owner has family in Kashmir and we had an interesting political conversation about the problems currently occurring in Kashmir before we got back to stroking more shawls.

The last one had a particular name for the style which meant patterned all over. This is hand worked and takes over a year to complete. This was reflected in the price 92,000 rupees.  We got an exchange rate of 82 rupees for a British pound.

Lucy bought me a beautiful blue embroidered shawl which I haven't yet taken a photo of. Obviously nowhere near that expensive!

There was a lot of building going on across the city and whilst most used metal scaffolding we still came across the wooden scaffold poles similar to those I saw in Ethiopia.

We also visited a copper worker and saw how the copper was beaten into bowls from the flat sheets. They also worked with other metals.

I've got one last group of photos to show you which are about the community action programme we took part in.

Lyndsey