Udaipur Shopping

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In the vacinity of the rooftop restaurants, up the hill from the City Palace are a number of shops devoted to Rajasthani art and handicrafts. My wife purchased a very colorful beaded coat with embedded mirrors. Clothes like this are unaffordable for a middle class person to buy within the USA, due to the extraordinary labor involved in beading the garment. Also, we found patch work blankets made from fragments of antique wedding blankets and other fabric jewels. Mewar style minature paintings are also found here, typically painted on old book pages, so that if one reverses the art, writing or printing is found. These things are a surprising bargain that in the USA become art collectibles of considerable value.

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Udaipur has countless shops and many interesting local crafts that make it a one-of-its-king shopping experience.

What to buy: A plethora of items like folk toys, colourful tie-and-dye-sarees and clothes, turbans, hand painted fabric, silver jewellery, wall hangings and miniature paintings in Rajput style are the favourite buys.

Always a nice activity too, here in Udaipur is very simple, nice and not so stressed to shop a bit during a walk trought the city.
Close tothe Jagdish temple there are a lot of small shops selling whatever, from the hand made paper, with hand made photo albums, agenda, clothes, and whatever you could think about.
There are also few photo developper shops, so in case you need some films, get here!
The prices are quiet ok, but only after a long long long discussion with the seller...if you know what I mean... Do not leave Udaipur without an hand made photo album!

Since we had been going into shops asking for prices of things we decided after visiting the city palace we would check out the shop right next to the palace thinking that the prices would be outrageous. We found that the prices were less if not the same as other places and the quality of work that they did was alot better than an outfit that we had made in Hathi Pole (the clothes shopping district more for locals.)

They had things that were very good quality and they had a nice selection. My husband had a wool Nehru Suit made in 1 day for about $75.00.

Udaipur has dozens of tailor shops, some catering to tourists and many for locals. I had clothes made to measure at two shops--one tourist-oriented, one local--and finally fulfilled my Indian female friends' wishes that I start dressing in churidars. I now own two, one silk and one cotton, along with a couple of fine wool shawls. All of this together set me back about $35 total, after bargaining.

Hathi Pole neighborhood is an excellent place to buy clothing--it is not a tourist area and there are many shops right there. If you want tailors who speak better English and have pattern books for Western clothes, walk down to the more touristy part of town between Jagdish Temple and the City Palace

What to pay: At the tourist-oriented shop, I picked out a silk/cotton blend fabric and got measured for a salwar kameez (tunic and trousers). The first price quoted to me was Rs 1200--but I had just bought another outfit at a local shop, in the company of my Indian friend, for Rs 800. So after a lot of negotiating, I got this guy down to 800. Afterwards, another Indian woman friend said that I should have paid 600. The way I see it, if I only paid 33% more than an Indian person would have, I think I did pretty well on this purchase.