We had a great sleep at our hotel & a leisurely breakfast. The program for the late morning & early afternoon was to visit the silk weaving sector of the city.

We were transported from our hotel to the silk sector by gas powered tuk-tuks. That was a pretty exciting experience all in itself!

The silk industry has been a part of Varanasi for centuries, primarily through the Muslim community. There are over 700 working looms still in the area, off of narrow alleyways and winding streets in a concentrated area of the city.

Manu had arranged for a local guide to take us through the manufacturing area where the silk threads are woven into a variety of colours & patterns.

The majority of the silk fabrics made in Varanasi are sold to retailers all over the world. Very little of their output is sold directly to the end customer in India.

Our first stop on the tour was to see one of the shops where the loom programming cards are punched out. This process has been around for well over 100 years. You could say that these looms were among the first programmable computers.

A separate design team lays out a pattern for the loom to weave. The pattern is converted into a series of holes punched into hard rectangular paper cards & the cards are then tied together into long series & are fed into the loom which uses this information to weave the threads into the fabric.

The small spools of silk threads are loaded onto a device that wraps the threads onto a single large spool that is then hooked up to the loom & ready for weaving.

Hundreds of spools of silk are rolled onto a big rack

Then all of the silk threads are fed onto another much larger wheel

Finally the threads are rolled onto a single large spool the feeds the loom. The spool is covered with cardboard to protect the silk while it is being transferred to the loom.

Once the design cards are complete they are fed into the loom & the threads a fed into the loom.

The sound of the looms in operation is deafening! It’s like something out of Dickens – small cramped workspaces, pieces of metal machinery whirling around, hardly any light. The looms work almost too fast to see the weaving process take place.

After visiting a few of the electric motor driven looms we were taken to a room where silk fabrics are woven by hand, using a manual loom. Our guide explained that these looms are used for very elaborate patterns & it could take a weaver over a month to make a meter of top quality & very expensive fabric. These looms are generally used for special orders only.

After touring the manufacturing operations our group was taken to a fabric display room where the manager of the co-operative showed us a variety of absolutely gorgeous finished products ranging from bolts of fabric for making clothing as well as finished bedspreads, table cloths & scarves.

The “silk guru” held the ladies’ full attention during his presentation

He did an excellent job explaining what makes different quality & value of silk and wool fabrics as compared to synthetics. Of course there was an opportunity to make purchases at very reasonable prices. The group really appreciated the fact that there was no pressure to buy anything. We were offered chai as part of the presentation ritual! Several of us made purchases, to support the local economy and buy Fair Trade products. Luckily they take Visa!

After the tour we returned to the hotel by tuk-tuks again & had a few hours to rest up before our next activity of the day.

At 4:30pm we assembled in the hotel lobby. Manu explained that we would be traveling by bicycle rickshaws to the banks of the Ganges River for a brief walking tour & then a boat ride on the river to watch the sunset. We would get a chance to watch a sunset ceremony or “aarti” performed by 7 Brahmin priests.

Manu did an excellent job describing the history of Varanasi & the importance of the Ganges to Hindus. There are 84 ghats or sets of stone steps leading to the water spread out along about a two kilometer stretch of the western shore of the river.

This site has been performing ritual cremations for many centuries. The fires that are used to light the funeral pyres have also been burning continuously for several hundred years. Cremations take place 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

While we were waiting to board the boat, a holy man came along offering blessings to us. Manu assured us that he was the real deal so for 100 rupees each ($2.00) we received the tika red mark for the third eye chakra and three horizontal stripes of sandalwood paste denoting a blessing from Lord Shiva for a long life. Om Namah Shivaya.

Our boat was a large rowboat with no engine that could hold about 15 passengers. It was rowed by one person!

We went past one of the main cremation sites, where several huge cremation fires were burning. Our boat stayed about 100 meters from shore & Manu asked the group to kindly not take any photos of these particular activities as respect for the grieving families.

Once our boat had gone past the cremation ghats we proceeded to head towards the main “stage” on shore where the priests performed the evening ritual ritual accompanied by conch shells, bells, incense, lights, peacock feathers and chanting.

There were probably more than 100 boats like ours that came close to shore to witness the service. We had chai tea on board and then we each sent a small offering of a candle and marigolds on a little paper plate into the water. It was a fascinating & very moving evening, especially with the pink sunset & a full moon that rose dark red in the sky framing the spectacle.

The ceremony went on for about an hour & then we returned to our rickshaws to go to a restaurant nearby our hotel for a late dinner. We were delighted to find “dosas” or large thin pancakes that we had enjoyed in South India on the menu. Then, back to the hotel for bed.

The next day we had a 5:30am start to go back to the same place to watch the sunrise over the Ganges.

Namaste 🙏