All sand here. I was in a souk last night talking to the Indian shop owner. I asked him about rough in the country and he shook his head. It would be too expensive to work rough here so everyone buys jewelry from India and sells it here. He was a hobbyist himself for making jewelry and imports finished stones but told me he would never be able to sell the finished work at prices like he imports. That said he had some finished stones behind the counter and was quite proud to show it off to a fellow hobbyist. He occasionally sells them to people he knows who also have interest in doing their own work. He had three beautiful Australian opals. Two I ID'd as Coober Peady and what I think was Lambina, all roughly 5 kt. He wanted 50 a Kt but I bought the Lambina as a momento of the trip for $180. Definitely rates as a 4.5/5 with some beautiful rolling fire. Easily much more expensive in the States. I don't normally buy finished stones but I made an exception as the price was good and the stone was beautiful, now I have to figure out what to do with it.
He had a bunch of small Cats Eye stones. Very directional but very pretty. These were pricier than the opals but were much smaller. I cant remember ever seeing them before. Cool outing getting to talk to a fellow rock guy. Was in another jewelry store which had a fair amount of non-diamond jewelry. I mentioned jokingly he was missing laramar. After we got through the language barrier and did a google search he loved what he was seeing in laramar jewelry and hadn't heard of it before and was going to look into finding some for his shop.