The subtitle to this essay should be ‘how I went to India and came back with a lot less money than I expected’. India is a wonderful country which is different in many ways from the rest of the world and definitely worth seeing but it has a bad reputation. I think that is caused by all the shopping opportunities and what is often a hard sell.

The source of all wealth is in the West, at least according to most Indians, and Indians are more than pleased to help relieve us of all that money. It’s possible to feel very rich in India because everyone is telling you you are and it’s only when you get back home to find your credit card maxed out and very little spending money left, that you realise you weren’t really rich at all. Though you do have many souvenirs of India.

Our first shopping opportunity was in Agra where we saw a carpet weaving workshop. They took us through the process of weaving. Two people sit at a loom passing shuttles of different wool colours between a largely colourless warp (the vertical strings the colours are woven around). It was fascinating and made me want to have a go at weaving but was largely a prelude to selling us carpets. We were taken upstairs where different styles of admittedly beautiful carpets were thrown on the floor and credit card machines were discretely lined up on the sales desks. I resisted. Others didn’t.

I made my first purchase in Udaipur at the tailormade clothing shop. I brought two pairs of those light pants you can buy all over Asia with me, and both of them ripped when I was crawling all over the stone forts. You need to crawl; the stairs are so high. So, it was delicately suggested I buy more, and preferably stronger, pants. I also bought a dress made out of richly coloured material, a white embroidered top which I won’t be able to clean once I get home and a runner made out of old sari wedding blouses, complete with embroidery, coloured glass jewels and mirrors. The whole lot cost me $250. It wasn’t an awful lot compared to what I planned to spend, still I mentioned it to the tour guide.

“Pishtosh”, he said, or something like it. “Look at all that money you make in IT.” I don’t actually, I thought, Indians are taking all the jobs. He was a nice man so I didn’t say that, and also, before there were Indians all the jobs went to men, so it’s kind of nice watching them be retrenched. Lots of cafes where I live owned by ex-programmers of the Anglo male persuasion while I’ve been able to keep working because I’m paid women’s wages.

Next opportunity to spend money was the miniature painting studio. I don’t regret these purchases, I could have spent less and brought traditional subjects or spent much more and bought detailed and beautiful paintings. I opted for a little of both and still spent around $900. The miniature paintings weren’t small but the amount of detail was astounding. I bought a traditional painting of an elephant and a more risqué painting of a camel whose body was made of other animals. The third painting I bought was by a master artist. Each leaf of the tree is painted separately, the sun is setting, each cloud in the sky is separately drawn. The foreground shows a couple, the man plays a flute and his clothes are ornamented, even to the drawing of the fringe around the material wrapped around his body. There is a peacock at his feet, all the eyes on its feathers held straight behind it. The woman, sitting in a boat, wears a sari blouse and transparent headdress. She offers him a lotus with one hand and rows the boat with another. There are more lotuses in the foreground and sheep and a castle in the background. There are birds on the trees. And that’s only what I see in the painting this time. The painting is the size of an average photograph.

Walking round Udaipur our guide was approached by a man who had more goodies for us to buy. Beautiful woven shawls which the salesmen emphasized had been made for Hermes in Paris, but he was letting us have them cheap. Again I resisted, I don’t need shawls that I rarely wear, it’s the type of present one gets a lot from friends of friends who are trying to be nice. Others didn’t resist.

There were more shopping opportunities in Jodhpur: weaving and pottery. The weaving looms were amazing and I like how they mix colour but I would have preferred a more detailed demonstration and less of the laying out of carpets to make a sale. I didn’t buy any carpets, I haven’t got that much floor, but there were still plenty sold.

I liked the potter best. His wheel was a large round stone balanced on a rock in a hole in the ground. He used a stick to start it rotating and sat cross-legged next to it. He put a large lump of clay in the centre, wet his hands and, in quick succession made a small jar (and lid), a money box and, after he set the stone to spinning rapidly, a long-necked bottle. The bottle neck seemed so fragile and threatened more than once to lose shape. I got so tense, my stomach started fluttering. I was sure it would collapse. After than demonstration I had to buy something. I bought Ganesh.

In Jaipur there were spices to buy and jewellery. I got some saffron thinking it would be cheap. It was cheaper than in Australia but they kept taking us to shops that sell to tourists so it wasn’t as cheap as I’d like. Still there’s plenty, it should last a while. Actually, four years later I still have it and  still mean to use it.

In Udaipur we’d had our palms read. The palmist had many interesting things to say, many of which seemed real. Among other things he suggested I buy and wear an emerald to improve my life somehow. “Steady on,” I said, “how much money do you think I have.”

“Green onyx is fine, a green stone,” he said.

“I have a malachite ring at home,” I said but he didn’t know what that was. There isn’t any in India. Any green stone would do was the impression I got but I decided to enquire about emeralds at the jewellery store. After all, this was India, and the man had just finished telling us that all precious stones come to India to be set. Maybe they’re at wholesale prices I thought. Perhaps they were but it was wholesale tourist prices.

“But it’s more expensive in your country,” the salesman said confidently.

“No, it’s not,” I said to his utter surprise. “If it was so expensive why would anyone buy it.” I priced emeralds in Australia. They cost about the same. Second-hand, they were cheaper. I’m glad I bought citrine earrings instead though they were so small I nearly lost them in Calcutta.

There were more buying opportunities on the next tour but Southern India is far less mercantile or maybe because the tour cost more, they didn’t need to make agreements with stores. The girls I was with had searched the Internet to find things they could buy in India. There were some nuns selling embroidery but nothing appealed. I was running out of money by then anyway and was quite circumspect for the next few days. The girls dragged us to Anokhi stores but I didn’t like much of what they had, though I did buy two pairs of pants and some earrings. We stopped at a place that sold silk shawls and they showed us how they were woven and then gave us the sales pitch. I was the only one who bought. I bought a green shawl. They were beautiful and the girls were so quiet and unforceful.

We stopped at a few more jewellery stores and I did get a green onyx ring and a few more pairs of earrings, including a set of Ganesha earrings because I unashamedly embrace Ganesha and the luck he brings. Sadly, one has since disappeared somewhere in my house, I hope it isn’t in the vacuum cleaner. The other sits in my car and I hope prevents accidents. I bought a few books too and some other odd souvenirs. Pretty soon I was spending up big again, but I was doing the spending this time, not my guide, and even bargaining sometimes when I didn’t get carried away with the beauty of the pieces.

As a general rule they were much less forceful in the south, except for in one store where I was sitting waiting for the others and admired some work made from papier mache. It’s a complex process the salesman told me, involving soaking paper in village wells for long periods and applying it slowly.

“You’re kidding,” I said. “It’s made from old newspapers and glue. I know people who do it at home.” He wanted 750 rupees for a paperweight-sized paper ball. I offered him 250. He refused in disgust. Guess he’s waiting for tourists he can actually fool.