We recently wrote about some exciting enhancements to our website payment gateway. Well after a week of development and test payments we were ready to go live, when back came HDFC Bank to reject our application. Apparently most of our products fall into their “Non Target Profile”. This from the same bank that have provided all our business banking since we started, all our personal banking, our credit card facilities, and offered us an overdraft for financing. This despite us being an existing e-commerce operation with a history of sales that are going through one of HDFC’s competitors currently, and for which we wanted to give them the business! Unfortunately Zaakpay weren’t able to provide us a contact at HDFC to discuss this with, so short of escalating it to HDFC senior management ourselves it seems this will be destined for yet another chapter in Nisha’s planned book on the …
Welcome to Arastan
Arastan was an online store that curated rare and handpicked treasures from exotic bazaars along the ancient silk route. Unfortunately we ceased trading in early 2014.
You can read about the reasons for closure.
You can still browse some of the products we used to have via the category links above, although none of these are available for purchase.
Relive our travels and stories by browsing our articles and archives from the menus below.
Browse all our articles
- ►Creating Arastan (42)
- ►Craft Heritage (18)
- ►Afghanistan (1)
- ►Caucasus (7)
- ►India (8)
- ►Iran (1)
- ►Morocco (11)
- ►Thailand (2)
- ►Turkey (11)
- ►Turkmenistan (1)
- ►Uzbekistan (34)
- ►Events (12)
- ►Creating Arastan (42)
Browse our archives
- ► 2014
- ► 2013
- ▼ 2012
- ► December
- ► November
- ► October
- The Silk Route - India Today Home
- Banarasi Brocade, Mirzapur Carpets, Fantastic Samosas and some Soul-searching (Part I)
- Arastan Gift Cards
- Festive Carpet Offer
- Alisher Nazirov (Master Ceramist from Rishtan)
- Rustam Usmanov (Master Ceramist from Rishtan)
- Kaivalam to Iran: Antique Suzanis and Other Hand-crafted Treasures
- ► September
- ► August
- ▼ July
- ► June
- ► May
- ► March
- Fergana Valley: Ceramic, Ikat and Shavla
- The Tashkent Zoroastrians
- Bukhara in a Cold Sweat
- In Search of Zoroastrianism
- Happy Women and Mortifying Men
- Mosques, Mausoleums and Me
- Mobbed in Urgut and Stunned by Samarkand
- Beautiful Iroqi Embroidery and the Ak-Saray in Shakhrisabz
- Fabulous Suzanis, Terrible Toilets and Buzkashi
- To the South: Termez
- Exhausted (after orange lemons at Chorsu Bazaar and exquisite miniatures at Abulkasim Medressa)
- ► February
- ► January
- ► 2011
- ► December
- ► November
- ► September
- ► August
- ► July
- ► April
- ► March
- ► February
- Day 10: Windchilled in Bukhara!
- Day 9: Three Show Stoppers, 'I am a Disco Dancer' in Shakhrisabz, Rip-off in Bukhara
- Day 8: Ulugbek's Observatory, Registan and a Search Mission for Calligraphy
- Day 7: Mobbed in a Bazaar!
- Day 6: To Samarkand!
- Day 5 - Snow in Tashkent!
- Day 4: In Margilon – the land of Ikats!
- Day 3: Fergana to Rishton
- Day 2: To the Fergana Valley
- Changing Money in Uzbekistan
- Day 1: Valentine's Day in Tashkent!
- Eventful flight to Tashkent, Uzbekistan
- Visiting Master Craftsmen In Moradabad
- Getting Closer with Brand Identity...
- More Carpets Arrive...
- ► January