Tibetan Carpets

We've spent the last day and a half searching for Tibetan carpets. Pokhara is loaded with small Tibetan shops and the carpets are unique and beautiful. One carpet caught our eyes before we began our trek to the Annapurna Sanctuary and we went back to see it again yesterday.

During our conversation with Kelsang Dolma, who was running the small shop, we learned that Tibetan carpets are traditionally 3 feet X 6 feet to fit on a single bed. The carpets act as bottom sheets and the Tibetan's sleep right on the wool. The particular carpet we were interested in is made of yak wool, warmer and thicker than sheep wool, and is all natural yak wool colors.

After we came back for a second and third look at the carpet, Kelsang invited us to her family's rug factory to see them being made. We jumped at the opportunity.

The factory was contained in a large brick building at the edge of town. From the outside it looked like any other building and even inside it was hard to tell that it is where carpets were woven. Around a large courtyard were numerous cement rooms. One contained finished rolled rugs, one contained bags of wool, and in one I saw an old man spinning the wool into a large grey ball.

The weaving looms were off a corridor from the courtyard. Twelve looms were packed into a room and at each were two or three girls with streams of yarn dangling from their hands and winding like thin snakes across the floor.

I watched one row of one rug take shape. Each of three girls worked one third of the rug. They looped and knotted the wool yarn over metal rods held over the cotton warp strings. When their piece of the row was finished, they used a special hammer to bang the rod tight against the previous row and then ran a blade across the rod to free it and create a row of pile. Then, with large combs, they pushed the row even tighter against the last and used scissors to trim the longer ends where new colors had been started. When all three girls had finished their section, they shifted the warp and the waft strings and started again. Pinned to the cotton strings above them was the pattern from which they were working. It amazed me that with each of them working a different section, the pattern could line up so perfectly.

In another room of the building the final carpet trimming was done. We watched one rug being trimmed flat with over-sized scissors and then carved where one color met another. The effect was to bring a 3D-look to the pattern.

The visit to the factory was fascinating and when we got back to Lakeside Street we bought the carpet we'd had our eyes on. We also bought a second for my mother and a duffle bag to cart them in. We'll probably be the only people carting two carpets around Nepal.

Back in our hotel room we unrolled our new purchases to shake them out (they'd been sitting in open shops with mud and dust within easy range) and give them the comfort test. Ah! lush, but as it turned out, highly dangerous too. Barefoot and carefree I brushed my foot along the pile and then directly into John's foot. How this was possible I don't know. I've managed fifteen days trekking up and down mountain sides accident free and now, in the comfort of our hotel room, I managed to break my toe. Go figure!

At least I don't have to walk far to get to the bus stop tomorrow where we leave for Chitwan National Park. I think trekking in the park will be out of the question. Tomorrow I expect my now pink toe to turn purple and grow two sizes. Naturally my only shoes are my hiking boots. Speaking of which, I think I'll go get them polished.