Travels in India and Nepal...

A travelogue from Trade Aid's Product Developer Hannah (pictured right) on her travels to India and Nepal, showing our new buyer Amie the ropes....

"Thought I would give you all an update on the travels of Amie and myself..I apologise in advance it will not be as eloquent or coherent as Justin's fantastic travelogues...my mind is scrambled and very tired.

Amie (Trade Aid's buyer) and I are on a product development and buying trip in India and Nepal and I thought I would just share some of the funny moments...

no.1 - Stuck in a traffic jam and a boy bikes up to our window and delivers to Amie in the most serious of tones..."Hello, I love you".

no. 2 - An epic day trip to the Taj Mahal, and being asked by at least 30 people for their photograph with us. Undoubtedly countless family portraits with two awkward looking new zealand girls in it all around north India now.

no. 3 - completely misjudged the weather in Nepal...turns out it is freezing and I convinced Amie she would only need sandals and one cardigan..whoops! Needless to say we have now bought a pashmina each..

Things here are going well, we saw Aspiration last Tuesday, Tara project the next day and then visited some jewellery producers a couple of hours out of Delhi with Tara. We have seen lots of cool new products, and done quite a bit of new product development work.

We are now in Kathmandu, and having a great time here. We spent the last two days with ACP and are visiting for the next two days with Mahaguthi. Have seen heaps of great new products, and done lots of design work with all the groups we have visited. The visits with all the partners in Delhi also went well, Delhi as always is an intense city, so it is nice to be in Kathmandu where we blend in with all the other masses of tourists! All of the partners are facing decreased sales, so it is hard times all around, and every producer group we have visited have questioned us about when the next order is, not always an easy reply....

Hannah"