Shopping for jewelry... a daunting task

So one day we went out to venture and shop for an Indian outfit plus the matching jewelry that I wanted for the girls to wear on our next Xmas card. Well this is one part of the jewelry and the outfit you will see at Xmas time on our card... so I don't show more.

Isn't JJ a beautiful 'Indian' girl? We bought this piece of jewelry here at Zaveri Bazaar, the glittering gold market.



But I can tell you it was a daunting task!! We had to endure narrow dingy lanes, dust, open sewages which were definitely an eyesore. And there are no shopping malls or even a decent air-conditioned restaurants for outsiders, but no one is complaining because this has been the way of life here for generations in this Muslim area.

We knew approximately in which area we had to look for, but not exactly where or how the shops would look like, location or names... so we just had to venture out and search...

The streets in this huge bazaar area were packed with guys or better kulis who were carrying the goods from the huge trucks on the main road to the little shops in the side streets. Kulis everywhere!!





Here you see the back of the girls and my friend Charu walking through this maze of people, I was walking behind with my huge camera shooting away... look at some of the looks of the men, I don't think they were too happy me shooting them!
haha.. at that moment I didn't even notice, because my nose was behind the camera!! I only figured this out when I looked at the pictures on my computer :-)



We saw all kind of shops, but so far not any carrying any jewelry...





Then we came closer, because now on the side of the roads at the market we saw huges piles of bangles... we were at least in the right corner of this gigantic market area. But these we were not interested in...





We walked a bit more, and saw more interesting looking shops, but today no time for anything else... this outfit and jewelry already took up quite some time and the heat was sweltering... in between those buildings... no breeze, just humidity and the hot sun!!







Then we saw this stall, at first we gave it a glance but didn't think we wanted something in these plastic bags, but then the vendor showed us some more nice looking jewelry in a box. It was a complete set, and since we were already a bit tired and totally hot we decided this is our man! And Kavita our friend bought the jewelry and bangles for the girls... so nice to get as a gift! JJ and Jezz are over the moon with their sparkly jewelry and couldn't wait to try it on at home :-)



So finished with our shopping and while walking back we found another great store, a more descent (read expensive) looking store we just went in to have a final look and we bought even more jewelry, so now the girls are decked out with big bling on our next Xmas card! LOL

A little tired now and Jasmine looking back to see if I was still behind her, because I took so many pictures of this huge market area called Kalbadevi. If you ever want to go shop for anything, fabrics, jewelry, spices, plastic, kitchen utensils, go here! You can shop till you drop!



On the way out we saw this beautiful Hindu Monkey Temple.





The pink painted façade of the biggest Krishna temple in Kalbadevi – one of the city’s oldest Gujarati neighbourhoods – is known by various names: Dwarkadheesh Temple, Radheshyam Temple and Sunderbagh. But the name that brings instant recognition is the one by which the British knew it, Monkey Temple, thanks to a row of monkeys eating bananas carved on its frontage.




A very interesting but exhausting day... after this we just went home, took a shower and relaxed!

Hope you are liking my journey through Incredible India!
Mireille xx