The additional joy to running The Silver Sprite is definitely the opportunity to travel the world in pursuit of beautiful new collections. So far Sprite has taken me (and Mr Sprite) to Poland & India, with Arizona & Mexico on the list for 2024.
I must confess I had low expectations of Poland. I had always pictured a dull concrete jungle. How wrong I was! Gdansk - home of amber - is a gorgeous sophisticated city. It's set on a river so has echoes of Amsterdam, and has stunning architecture reminding me of Prague. The other thing I got wrong was the food... I'd had fears of boiled potatoes being the best offering for a vegetarian. But no! We discovered a fab authentic Indian, a cute little Thai on the riverside and had one of the best pizzas of our lives (and that includes our trip to Naples). A short flight & inexpensive hotels mean we'll definitely be returning before too long.
India I had been to before, but everyone told me that Goa isn't really India - how right they were! We did two prongs of the Golden Triangle - Delhi & Jaipur - and are saving Agra for next time. Delhi really was QUITE the eye-opener! Truly a city of two halves. The new half is smart, open, green & policed... somewhat like Washington DC. We had booked a private tour of the centre of Old Delhi, and it was incredible. The hustle & bustle of people going about their business! The area had clear sections, from the streets dedicated to building bathrooms, to the streets selling wedding invitations. The spice streets. Shoes. Beads. And scattered among them all were the street food vendors, selling the most delicious (and insanely cheap) traditional food. Don't get me started on the lack of health & safety though! Live cables hanging everywhere... new floors just thrown on top of buildings (fingers crossed that they remain intact)... roads being dug up by workers wearing flip-flops & no protective clothing or eyegear.
We took a train from Delhi to Jaipur, which was utterly revolting. "An experience" is probably the best way I could politely describe it. The toilet... well they seemed to have failed to install one, shall we say. Why bother when you can just cut a hole into the ground, onto the track below. A man walks the carriages selling masala tea from an urn. Another coughed all over us for 5 hours and Mr Sprite got the latest covid variant. We were beside ourselves with delight to arrive at our hotel in Jaipur, watching the peacocks roam free & sipping chilled overpriced wine. Safe to say we got a chauffeur for the return trip to Delhi...!
Jaipur was breathtaking. Incredible buildings every corner you turn & ornate archways leading to the next district. Known as The Pink City, the colour really is everywhere – the architecture is so romantic and creative, and the markets line the streets. And so do the animals... cows fast asleep in the middle of the road, dogs snoozing in the sun, people riding elephants & camels to work. But my favourite were the monkeys, who just hang around where the fancy takes them. How I didn't pop a baby one into my suitcase remains a mystery.
The sad things though are the pollution & the poverty. It's incredibly humbling to pass shanty towns, with men waking for the day in their rags, and pumping water so they can brush their teeth - knowing that they need to maintain dental hygiene to avoid big bills in later life. And the pollution is devastating - we hear about how bad it is, but to see the piles of rubbish clogging up what was once a river, bottles etc strewn but the roadside... really very alarming.
So while I'm ostensibly visiting these countries in the name of new designs & expanding collections, these trips are far more than that. They allow me to study a culture and see the spirit behind some of the jewellery these countries produce – it’s just an assault on the senses, with incredible colour all around, and it’s impossible not to feel inspired to design new pieces. I can't wait to see more!
