Wow, we’ve been so busy and our schedule has been quite frantic at times. I’ve also developed a cold and a cough so been feeling rather tired by the time we got back in the evenings. Anyway, here’s a quick catch up starting with Saturday at the blue pottery workshop. It’s a traditional pottery if this area but this method is dying out. No wonder as it’s very Hands on and time consuming. All the patterns are hand drawn – no transfers or printing of any kind. We got to design our own plates and they’ve been fired for us. They look very different when the painted colours are fired and the true colour comes out!

We spent Sunday morning relaxing in the hotel garden getting henna tattoos on our hands. The men doing the patterns were extremely talented and we all had very intricate designs on both the palms and backs of our hands. The tattoos will last about three weeks!
The afternoon was another shopping opportunity at an Indian Department store called fab India. We were able to buy items of clothing and household textiles and I managed to get my table runner for Christmas!

Monday morning saw us doing another workshop in the hotel with Andy who has been very entertaining all week. He is a talented artist and we’ve learned a lot from him. in the afternoon we were excited to get up close and personal with elephants. We visited an elephant sanctuary that looks after retired animals and makes sure they are cared for. We were able to stroke and hug the elephants, then feed them with sliced bread and bananas. They also enjoyed being painted with powder paint. Apparently they like the touch of the sticks used for the paint as it massages them. Some others took a ride around the field which was great fun. Everyone had a brilliant afternoon and it was a real highlight for some people who had never seen elephants before.

Today, Tuesday, we visited the largest paper making factory in India. They use cotton rags from the textile industry along with cardboard and other paper which is all recycled together into a pulp and pressed in a frame to make sheets of paper. We were in heaven when we saw the warehouse with all the colours stacked up. Even better we discovered the cost was only Rs.50 per huge sheet for paper that would cost around £3 for an A4 sheet at home. We all came home with a roll of various sheets wondering how we would fit it into our suitcase but determined we would.

Before returning to the hotel we visited a bazaar area for our final shopping trip. We found a shop selling ribbons beads and other decorative items and spent ages choosing some beautiful things. The shopkeepers told us they had two more floors but we needed to move on! This bazaar was good fun and we didn’t feel hassled in anyway. It was less touristy and had more variety of shops as used by local people. The colours, the noise and the smells were incredible!