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“How to make silk” |
As we were drinking last night, we kept delaying the time to start our free day in Siam Reap. As always, we had grand plans, and as usual, they changed significantly throughout the day.
Since it was the day after the town’s big New Year’s Celebration, it was noticeably quiet. We tried to get a tuk tuk to take us to the silk factory, but quickly took up the offer of some guy in front of our hotel with a car, who offered round trip travel for $20, for 4 of us. Considering that he could go much faster than a tuk tuk and had A/C, this was a great deal.
Families traveling into town to celebrate the day congested the road out to the factory. We passed all sorts of oddities, including tons of Cambodian taxis, which are like the hay wagons they use at Oktoberfests, a tractor in the front carrying some kind of bed full of people. As they passed each other, the kids would sing and scream across the road. We also saw lots of girls asking for alms for temples, and my favorite – a reclining monk with a microphone and loudspeaker. The juxtaposition of monks with modern amenities, like on mopeds or acting as DJs, always gets me. In Cambodia, you can be a monk for as little as two weeks, sort of to cleanse the spirit, then go back to your normal life, which I think explains a lot.
The silk factory occupied a little oasis with lush landscaping and a smart layout. Even with the holiday’s skeleton crew, we had a tour guide take us through the process, from larva to scarf. It’s a really interesting process that made me rethink the cost of silk items. Silkworms only eat mulberry leaves, so the center planted multiple varieties of mulberry trees. The newly hatched silk caterpillars eat all day until they’re large enough (several weeks), and then spin cocoons for a few days. When the cocoons are ready, they are put in very hot (but not boiling) water. This loosens up the filament and allows the fibers to be reeled into a thread. It also nearly kills the worm. The women eat the worms for good luck – I was feeling pretty lucky that day and opted not to try one. The threads are spun into yarn, which is used in the weaving process to make anything from scarves to traditional ceremonial dress. If the weave is to have a pattern, like brocade, one day’s work yields only about a foot of material.
Naturally Sara and I checked out the store after the factory tour and bought a few things to bring back. The next stop on our plan was the Cambodian crafts store, which sells handicrafts produced by landmine victims and donates all profits back to them. Unfortunately, it was closed and we were denied another shopping opportunity, which was probably not altogether bad. We headed to our next stop, the Cambodian Children’s Hospital, to donate blood. That too was closed. With no other options, we just headed back to the hotel and chilled out until going to the airport for our flight to Phnom Penh.
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