We met for lunch in the hotel restaurant at 12:30 before heading off shopping at the Cottage Industries Emporium in the afternoon. We went to a different location than the one Yasho and Gayatri took me to a few weeks back, and it was filled with rugs, jewels, precious metals, fabrics, etc.

We sat in the main show room looking at rugs, and I was hauled off to a smaller room to look at the 2×3 prayer mats. Nothing larger would have managed to fit in my budget. The small Kashmir wool rugs started at 170$ USD, so I figured that I’d just be looking at them, rather than planning on purchasing any. The rugs were beautiful, but I’d other plans for the spending money I’d budgeted for the trip.

The salesman offered to sell a rug for 140$ USD, but that was still a little rich for my liking, so I headed back to the larger room. While the salesman was attempting to tell me what an amazing deal 140$ USD was, Manish and Bill arrived on the scene. Manish began haggling – attempting to get the rug down to approx 100$ USD, which was about the top end of my budget. During the back and forth arguing between the two, Bill became my hero. He piped up and asked what the price would be if he bought a few rugs in addition to the one I’d liked. After a bit more haggling, the price had been dropped to 90$ USD and the gavel were down on the sale before the salesman had time to blink. I’m now the happy owner of a 2×3 prayer mat to hang on my wall. Bill picked out two of the smaller rugs and added a 6×9 floor rug to his collection. In the end, the rugs were sold at a 47% discount, with no sales tax, and no shipping charges. The salesman looked like he was about to burst when Bill informed him that shipping the rugs via DHL was a deal breaker and that he’d have to ship them FedEx. After quickly agreeing to FedEx the packages, anything to keep Bill happy, Bill told him it was ok and that they could use their normal carrier to ship his package home.

The smaller rugs will be carried home in our luggage, while the larger one is being shipped back to his home in the US.

While we were busy haggling our way to a deal, Linda was viewing two amazing silk on silk area rugs. Manish stepped in again, and after much debate and gnashing of teeth, the salesman sold the rugs to Linda for less than 50% of their ticketed price. As with Bills’ rug, Linda will have her rugs shipped home (free of charge) and they should arrive in the US about the same time she lands back home.

As Linda was finalizing her purchases, Anand, Bill and I roamed the rest of the store. I wasn’t really interested in the jewelry, so I headed off to the textiles section. Manish came to the rescue again, and bargained the items I was interested in purchasing down by 40%. Loaded down with bags, we headed off to work.

I caught a ride home with Bill and Linda and we were chased by a number of barking dogs for many blocks. At one point, a pack of dogs was lying in the road and all got up to give chase. Both Linda and Bill swear that they’ve never been chased by dogs before and are firmly convinced the dogs were after me. To add to the theory, we learned that Anand hadn’t been chased by dogs on his ride home tonight!

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