New sapphires and alexandrite

I've just started to receive from the gem labs some of the sapphires and other stones that I purchased on my November trip to Sri Lanka. Check out the "New Gemstones" page for two nice sapphires and a unique cat's eye alexandrite.

I've posted some photos below from my last trip. The first is the gem market held in Beruwala, a small city on the west coast about 2 hours south of Colombo. The market is open Wednesdays and Saturdays, and is very busy as you can see from the photo. The other two photos are at the early morning rough gem market in Nivithigala, about 20km from Ratnapura. The miners bring their newly found stones to sell to brokers and cutters. It was fun to look and negotiate, but prices were crazy high so I didn't buy anything.