Cotton Shoppers

First Class India: The country that takes on a new dimension when you travel ...

Then back on the train for a short journey to Jaipur. We go off-piste in the city because I’ve been many times before and want to spend the day visiting Indian friends.

So while our fellow passengers are treated to a tour of the Pink City, shopping and a trip to the Amber Fort, we spend the afternoon in the countryside.

And because everything that happens in India has a slightly Alice in Wonderland unreality attached to it, we find ourselves in Dera Amer at the foothills of the Aravali mountains, being treated to an elephant ride through the woods before rejoining our group at the Jal Mahal water palace.

Dinner is preceded by a moonlit elephant polo match, in which the train passengers are divided into
teams, helped mount the elephants via stepladders and gently guided through a friendly chukka.

Source: Daily Mail

Dan and Carolann are not at Home: Coloured Impressions of India

by Dan Cooper

Sometimes I feel that we travel because of a restlessness that we can’t seem to satisfy at home. In India I certainly don’t feel restless – just beaten – by the ceaseless noise, the brain-piercing scream of the horns, the roar of the tuk-tuks, the tap, tap, tap of a small hungry child’s fingernails on the car window. The pain reaches right inside your head and it never stops, even if you plug your ears. I look at the girl’s pleading eyes and I feel her pain; I look away and I feel guilty. I ignore her hand-to-mouth gestures, begging for money to eat, and my guilt subsides, but her pain is seared into my brain and it won’t go away so easily. And so it is with the pain of India. It is everywhere, like the beggars on the streets. You force yourself to ignore it, but it doesn’t go away. And it’s...

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A Night Out: Addis's Fashion Show « Addis Journal

by arefe

It is New Year’s Eve, which makes it a good time to observe fashion reflected in traditional clothing styles. Amidst the exciting bustle of preparation for Enkutatash, the streets in Addis confirm over the weekend that traditional outfits remain the frequent choice for holiday attire. The fashion show held at Alliance éthio-française on Friday night reflected that.A young fashion designer Abraham Tekle has displayed a unique collection of outfits for women and men reflecting traditional Ethiopian costumes and fabrics. Models walked the room accompanied by music such as Mikiyas Chernet’s “Meshitu Demeke” and Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman”. As models walked down the runway, audience members cheered at their favorites.The collection includes dresses, jodhpur-like trousers, shirts and skirts, toga-like garments, ranging from 300 birr to 3,000 birr. He nurtured that passion at a young age. Growing in Addis Ababa’s Mercato area, he learned his trade from the cloth artisans working in the area. He learned to weave and dye by looking and experimenting and in his teenage years, he joined the privately owned Zewditu Taylor School where he studied sewing, cloth dying, quilt making, and painting. Through the years, the young man has worked his way up and achieved a tremendous lot.He is now one of the entrepreneurs actively engaged in making innovative products and setting his personal mark.Many of the products he has introduced have become so successful. He has developed a loyal client base that includes designing the costumes for the Ethiopian National Theatre. His works were displayed at various fashion galas held in Global Hotel, Imperial Hotel, the Exhibition Center and the Alliance Ethio-Franicase.

...

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Cotton Dress jodhpur News

First Class India: The country that takes on a new dimension when you travel ...

Daily Mail - Jan 01, 1970

It's as though David Lean has flawlessly set-dressed the scene. The end credits could have rolled there and then. But our journey holds yet more. There is Jodhpur to see, spas to be pampered in, bazaars to visit and a tour of Mehrangarh Fort the