India 2009 Part 4 - Visting two gardens and a paper marche shop

On the last day, we went to visit the Mughal Gardens of Nishat (Garden of Pleasure) but we had breakfast first… J

Kashmiri bread (our house boat butler went to buy some from the local market, we were told this is not available everyday and it sells out fast!). Hard but tastes great!

Below are two photos of Mughal Gardens of Nishat (Garden of Pleasure)

Shalimar (Garden of Love) built by Mughal Emperor Jehangir for his wife Empress Noor Jehan. Our guide Mahjid (above picture) buying our entrance tickets.

Next stop - a Kashmiri carpet factory. We were given a good look at how they hand-knotted a carpet. It takes maybe ten families at least ten months to complete a carpet.

In the showroom, carpets of different sizes were dramatically laid out for our viewing pleasure. The man is holding a "baby", the smallest carpet this factory produces. I think the selling price was around USD200.

By rotating the carpet, you can change its look. (No, it's not a flying carpet hehe...)

The world-famous Kashmiri hand-knotted carpets. They truly are exquisite!

We stopped for nuts and fruits before heading to the paper marche place.

Here we are. The papier marche place. Up these stairs and you'll enter a roomful of paper products.

Yes, these are all made from paper. Amazing details and the amount of work involved is mind-boggling. These exquisite boxes cost INR 4,000! or more than SGD120. But these (below) are more useful (actually this is all we could afford hehe).

On the way back to the house boat, I was able to snap a photo o a a shy little Kashmiri boy huddled over his winter wife (under his overcoat), waiting for his mom. He was so cute, peeking at us but quickly looked down when he spotted us looking at him. :)