Jaipur for gems

You can buy jewellery all over India: Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad (a noted pearl centre, entirely because the last Nizam had such a penchant for them). All have their charms and their specialist dealers. But it’s more fun to shop in Jaipur, the pink city, than anywhere else I know.

Jaipur is the acknowledged centre for gemstone cutting. If you’re friends with locals, milk them for information – they’ll have got to know a dealer or will have a family jeweller whom they trust (which is how I came to be an ardent fan of Padma Gems in Delhi).

Otherwise, get your eye in by visiting several jewellers before buying. Poking around in the dusty alleyways gives you an invaluable insight into the workings of the Indian merchants’ way of life. Take in the Muslim area of Pahar Ganj, in the Surajpol Bazaar district, where stones are cut and polished and a lot of silver jewellery is for sale.

The world's coolest hotel rooms

Bill Tikos, editor of trend-setting blog, the cool hunter, picks his top ten sexy hotel rooms

• The A-listers' guide to luxury holidays

The A-listers' guide to luxury holidays

Paul Croughton finds the best tour operators for a blow out break and gets to the nitty gritty of the bill

• The 13 hottest hotels for winter sun

• A new era in first class travel

• What do you get for a £12k a week Oz resort?

BACKGROUND

• The VIP guide to the world's top 12 sites

• The world's best colonial hotels

• 13 of the world's most remote hotels

• World's most expensive hotel suites

• World's hottest hotels

You can fashion your own jewellery affordably by buying loose stones – spinels, rubies, citrines, peridots – and round the corner, somebody will make them up into simple strings or something fancier in a couple of hours.

If you want pukka, made-up jewellery, then the world-renowned place is the Gem Palace (on Mirza Ismail Road). The Kasliwal brothers who own it have some very grand clients, but you won’t be ripped off, and they have a terrific choice: anything from huge ropes of pearls

to conventional engagement rings, ancient tribal pieces, Indian dangly earrings or set-piece necklaces. They’ll also buy back, at any time, anything you buy at the price you paid.

Surana’s USP is a modern take on traditional Kundan Meena jewellery – which combines enamelling with huge stones set in gold or silver (b-7e, Surana Enclave, Ram Singh Road). Then there’s Santi Chodhary’s Royal Gems and Arts, in a beautiful old haveli – gorgeous arches, wooden shutters and painted walls (Saras Sadan, Gangore Bazaar), where Giorgio Armani and other luminaries drop in when they’re in town.

You’ll find a wide selection of Indian-influenced jewellery, and some less geographically specific pieces. Or you can pick up semi-precious stones very inexpensively at Tholia’s Kuber (also on Mirza Ismail Road). And then there’s Amrapali, at Panch Batti, Mirza Ismail Road, which used to specialise in old tribal pieces and is still a good source of vintage jewellery, but now caters for a more modern sensibility as well.

Broome for pearls

Pearls are an all-time classic, and since there is scarcely a woman alive who doesn’t hanker for a beautiful string of them, what could be nicer than to buy them in one of the great pearling centres of the world, such as Broome, in the north of Western Australia.

A trip to Broome is an adventure. It’s off the beaten track, 1,400 miles north of Perth, a raffish, somewhat ramshackle place, but with fabulous birdlife and miles and miles of curving, sandy beaches. What’s more, Broome is steeped in pearling history.

Times recommends

• Croatia: the flashing blades of Korkcula
• The best stopovers en route to Australia
• Chernobyl offers a holiday in hell