Today I visited the “Gem Market” which is right next to my favourite restaurant. First thing I notice is that there is a lot of dematoid garnet, no facet quality but lots of individual crystals, faceted gemstones and specimens. I bought about 20, 27.7 grams, for specimens for gemo’s and the like. They are lovely crystals the largest two 14 and 15 carats. I also saw a 47.3ct crystal but they wanted too much for it. I also bought 3 specimens with the crystals still on the matrix. Not large crystals, because if they were they would have been pulled off. I have made up my mind that we will definitely be heading there before I leave. 
Second is there is basically no cut emerald, except for some tiny and/or heavily flawed stones. The Government now wants all emerald rough sold by auction, like the Burmese do with the best ruby rough. You have to be invited and be prepared to spend big money and that means the locals miss out.
Didn’t see much decent cut stone, the actual cutting is usually very good, but they cut rough that has flaws, sometimes lots of flaws. I did manage to fill one of Sandra’s requests for a Bi coloured tourmaline. I found 3 flawless ones of 7, 1.27 and 1.19 carats. All an orange/pink and green. This trip I also bought about 16 large cut rock crystals (quartz) that have odd inclusions. The local cutters cut them so the inclusions form a bit of a picture. I think they look great and would definitely be unique in a pendant, Sandra’s waiting to get her hands on some of these as well.
I bought a large slice, 6-7cm across of Polychromatic Tourmaline (Liddicoatite) which has some great colour changes and the triangle in the middle. It was the biggest piece I could find and about the only decent one, but very expensive. Lastly I had to have a great specimen of tourmaline crystals in a spray. There must be about 25 crystals quite a few of them bi coloured and each about 3cms in length, absolutely beautiful.
Didn’t see much decent cut stone, the actual cutting is usually very good, but they cut rough that has flaws, sometimes lots of flaws. I did manage to fill one of Sandra’s requests for a Bi coloured tourmaline. I found 3 flawless ones of 7, 1.27 and 1.19 carats. All an orange/pink and green. This trip I also bought about 16 large cut rock crystals (quartz) that have odd inclusions. The local cutters cut them so the inclusions form a bit of a picture. I think they look great and would definitely be unique in a pendant, Sandra’s waiting to get her hands on some of these as well.
I bought a large slice, 6-7cm across of Polychromatic Tourmaline (Liddicoatite) which has some great colour changes and the triangle in the middle. It was the biggest piece I could find and about the only decent one, but very expensive. Lastly I had to have a great specimen of tourmaline crystals in a spray. There must be about 25 crystals quite a few of them bi coloured and each about 3cms in length, absolutely beautiful.
There really are some great pieces at this market, which would suit all taste. I was there for about 5 hours all up, taking my time and making sure to ask if they had anything special put away. That’s how I got the tourmalines, faceted, sliced and specimen. The last hour, after I had a leisurely lunch, I went back and set up all my instruments on a borrowed counter top and identified stones for the locals. Good PR and some of them are quite surprised to find out what they actually have.
I’ve been warned off heading south by numerous people, including the police, as dangerous because of bandits and since my main reason for heading there was to get some of the blue Ceylon coloured sapphire, and that’s not possible, I’ll heed that warning. Seems they are particularly targeting foreigners being driven around gem areas.
Also had a bit of a health scare waking this morning with a bit of a fever, which I thought was probably from getting drenched and then frozen on the walk yesterday. Since this is a malaria area every fever needs to be checked out, so had a blood test this morning and the doctor has rung to tell me it’s not malaria, take two panadol and go to bed, big sigh of relief as I’ve had it before and it really isn’t pleasant.
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