You're proabably not getting anything: a primer on when not to shop in India

So, probably you aren't getting a souvenir from the trip so don't expect one.

Before I left, Angela showed me the blanket her friend had purchased for her in Nepal. She told me that she cherishes it and that it was cheap. I had already heard that other stuff was inexpensive too (I got a tailor made suit for about 180 bucks) so I thought to myself, "awesome. Empty suitcase, cheap stuff, amazing trip, I'll get a bunch of keepsakes for people. Said people will be happy and they will love me."

When Air France lost the empty suitcase borrowed from my mom on our flight there, I guess that was Universal Foreshadowing. Further reason to believe in signs.

Honestly, we didn't have a whole lot of time to shop. It seemed that if there was an opportunity, it happened to be a holiday or the "King of Communists" had died and there was a declared state of mourning and businesses were closed. In the case of Gangtok, up in Sikkim, we were unable to visit the government price controlled handicrafts store (pictured above) because it was Republic Day. That was the big bummer. Can you imagine all of my hippie-hearted friends with trinkets handmade by Tibetan Buddhists? It would've been like 6 year olds at Christmastime.

We did visit a textile place near the end of the trip in Jaipur that tried to pull the wool over our eyes (pun intended,) showing us the shop on the ground level where their goods were supposedly made which Arijit assured us was just a dog and pony show. Things there weren't so cheap...the place wasn't so willing to bargain when they saw 12 dollar signs with legs walk in (read: white people.) I bought some really beautiful things, mostly because at that point I was feeling desperate to leave the country with something even if I was paying Shakti or Art Gecko prices. At least I got it from India.

Oh yeah, I purchased a new suitcase to replace my mom's, as we didn't have time to pick up hers from the Bagdogra Airport, where Air France allegedly sent it. It was then allegedly sent back to Delhi. By the time we had a chance to inquire about it in Chicago, we found that there is no record of it having ever existed in the first place because the agent in Delhi never entered it into the computer system. Thank the good LORD in heaven that they lost the empty one.