Silk Village

Our new guide showed up at our hotel at 9 am sharp, they are always on time. These guides are University students wanting to practice English. Their service is free, they even refuse tips. Today our guide was Trang, a junior majoring in Finance and Banking. She was wonderful. She took us to a village outside Hanoi specializing in silk production. The worms eat mulberry leaves, and the cocoons then grow on bamboo wall racks, When mature, the cocoons are soaked in hot water, then women draw the silk thread out of each cocoon by hand. The raw silk is dried then woven on antique wooden looms. The whole process hasn't changed for generations. The village was full of shops selling the factories silk.