Day 17 - Bike Tours, Bartering, Block-printing & Bedspreads

The morning was ours to do with as we wished. The ladies hit central Jaipur's Fab India store, accompanied by some men worried as to the condition of the diminishing pile of rupees. Fab India is the home of mix and match, good quality Indian clothing, barter free, hassle free - a haven of calm retail therapy in the maelstrom of Jaipur. We could all now feature in our own Bollywood epic. Most returned to the hotel for a rest - Pollie and I went to sort out tonight's restaurant, find a bank, and barter our way through a jewellery store. We took a bicycle rickshaw for the first time this holiday - Pollie bartered the fare way down, then took pity on the driver huffing and puffing his way through the carbon monoxide fumes of Jaipur, dragging two fat lasses behind him - and upped his fare past his original asking price.
After lunch the coach took us out to Saganeer. For some reason I'd imagined a small craft village, specialising in paper-making, fabric block-printing and pottery - but in actual fact the sprawl of Jaipur had engulfed the area and it was now just a suburb of small factories and manufacturers outlets - no less interesting for that though.
We were given explanations of all the processes involved in the production of the paper-making, printed textiles and the production of the Jaipur pottery and invited to take part and "have a go"

A new career beckons for Edmondson sahib

We declined the jobs in the pottery as our knees weren't up to it.
We then repaired to the factory shop to be plied with masala chai (wonderful sweet tea with ginger and spices), be assailed with the all products for sale, and so began the bartering process.
We finished up with 2 bedcovers at a very reasonable price ( I think! )

In the evening we tuktuked back into Jaipur, for the daily whiteknuckle ride, and I had the best vegetarian thali ever at Dak Prakash.