Twilight Vacations

In 16th century, when Mughal emperors came to Kashmir , they brought Persian carpet weavers with them as well as many other Persian craftsmen. That's why you could see the traditional Persian designs of Kerman, Kashan, and lsfahan in Kashmir carpets as well as their own beautiful local variations. Nowadays,Kashmir carpet weavers make some of the finest silk carpets in the world.  A high quality Kashmir carpet should be handmade from pure wool or pure silk. A lower quality Kashmir carpet may be made out of a combination of wool, rayon, and silk .It's really hard to distinguish which carpet is made up of pure silk and which one is made up of artificial one! They told me that you can tell real silk from artificial silk by  rubbing the pile with your palm. The real silk rug feels warm, while the artificial silk one still stays cold! They also pulled a rayon knot and burnt it ,and it smelled like burnt paper while the real silk smelled like burnt hair as pure silk has...

I never knew Kashmir was home to some of the best walnut wood carving  in the world.I've heard that walnut trees are not growing in any other place in India except for Kashmir valley.It's a unique wood for carving in terms of color and flexibility to work on it.The different parts of the walnut tree has different colors.The root has almost black color and is the most expensive one. Wood carving is done on a variety of objects from tables, chairs, writing desks, dining tables , cigarette boxes,  jewelry boxes, photo frames and a lot of other decorative objects.You just name it! You could find varieties of wooden handicrafts with various motifs from Kashmir flowers and plants.Though they are mostly Muslims,it's nice to see even Hindu symbols,and also wooden statues of mythical Hindu god and goddesses. Wood carving is also done  on the doors, walls and windows of traditional Kashmiri houses and their beautiful house boats.I've been told that British who came to Ka...