‘The most outrageous souvenir I ever bought - and how much it cost’

It’s not very often you buy something and it becomes an instant family heirloom.

Lord knows I’ve bought a lot of things more expensive. My iPhone 16 cost three times as much, my laptop four times as much. Not to mention the car and the house.

So, why this item? Why am I saying this is the most outrageous souvenir I ever bought and maybe my most indulgent purchase of any kind?

Well, the story starts a long way from here in the very far reaches of Ladakh in eastern Kashmir in India, on a high-altitude plateau in the Himalayas. This is the home of the Changpa tribe, a community of Tibetan Buddhists who herd Changthangi goats.

Over thousands of years Changthangi goats have adapted to the harsh, cold conditions of their environment by growing the softest, warmest wool on the planet.

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The result is the world’s finest grade Cashmere. Pashmina Cashmere. Beyond that is one finer grade – baby cashmere – which is hair that is shed by baby goats in the spring. It is not shorn. It falls naturally and is swept up and woven into fabric. That is what we are talking about here.

All of this is true by the way – the goats, the flowery prose. All true.

Now, from Ladakh our story takes us 1200 kilometres south to the wonderful Indian city of Jaipur and a famous shop on Gangapole Road called Heritage Textiles & Handicrafts.

I am with a tour group all hoping to jag some prized item at a bargain price.x

The manager offers us all a chai or a cold drink and proceeds to display some of the shop’s more popular wares: silk scarves, cashmere shawls, silk duvets, bed linen etc.

We get to “ooh” and “ahh” over the products and their lovely silken touch. Silk scarves are for sale from $20, so no one needs to walk away empty-handed.

Then there’s a pause for dramatic effect and the manager carefully reaches down and produces a scarf from under the counter.

He encourages people to hand it around to experience just once in their lives a Changthangi Baby Cashmere Scarf (Cue Gabriel’s Trumpet).

There is a sudden intake of breath from the first person to take the scarf.

It feels like holding air. It is so light and so warm at the same time. It’s translucent yet warm enough, as legend has it, to hatch an egg.

They only come in one colour. Goat. A kind of brownish grey. No dyes.

The moment I hold it I know I am not leaving the store without it. I have no idea what the price is, but this is India right? It’s 50 rupees to one Australian dollar.

If the first scarves we saw were $20 this can only be what? A hundred? Remember you can buy a good Chicken Tikka in a high-end restaurant here for $6.   

“How much?” I ask. And the manager doesn’t blink. “25,000 rupees” (about $500!).

This is going to be a present for my wife who was unable to make the trip. Take her home something nice. 25,000!

I remember last time we were in India I gave her a hard time for wanting to buy a woollen carpet that took five months to weave and cost $600. Now, here I was on the precipice of paying $500 for a scarf.

The tour group was watching intently and word was rippling through the staff that someone was about to buy a Changthangi.

I looked at the manager, looked back at the scarf, looked back at the poker-faced manager. It was like trying to read Eddie’s face for the million dollar answer on the old Hot Seat.

“I’LL TAKE IT,” I say.

I took it. A little bit of bargaining ensued after I bundled up some smaller items for gifts. But he knew he had me at namaste, so there wasn’t a lot of saving.

My wife loves it, but I’ve told her it can never leave the house, and I’m not even that keen on her wearing it indoors lest it gets snagged on something.  

So, that is the story of what is literally the GOAT of scarves and something we’ll be passing down to future generations.

Namaste to you, too.