*Location : Silk farm in Siem Reap, Cambodia
I was hanging out at the hostel and looking for something to do one day, other than visit Angkor wat. There’s this small silk farm in the city. About 15 minutes by tuk tuk ride. It was a beautiful day, sounds like a good idea to slowly look around the town.
We got a tour guide as soon as we walked into the farm. He speaks good English and very proud of what he does. The program is simple. They will show us what the silk is and how they make it. Naturally the first stop was.. to cocoons. Well, even before that, the room full of caterpillar. Thought that would gross me out but they were kind of cute and soft. Cambodia cocoon was different than what I know and what I saw in Korea. Apparently, the Cambodia tree effects the cocoon to be yellow. Thought it would be beautiful yellow silk but they dye it before make any products.
It’s really interesting to watch all the work they do. Working in the farm is pretty good for money as well. Think it’s really a hard work with low salary but all the ladies working in front of loom are making more money than our tour guide, according to him.
Yellow cocoons. Only in Cambodia
Extract silk from the cocoons
How to extract silk from the cocoons. See the fine lines? Those are going to be beautiful silk.
Voila! Look how shiny they are… Beautiful, aren’t they? It’s going to be the highest quality product.
And now they make this out of beautiful products.
A Cambodian lady who works at the farm.
Making patterns.
Ingredients for dying silk. Rusty nail for brown color was really interested.
Massive silk farm. You know what? Their salary is better than our tour guide! 🙂 He said it with.. the Face.
Wedding colors of Cambodian culture. Also silk product.
Very interesting picture narrative, Juno. Did you get any silk cloths?
Nice pictures. I went there today and it was a fascinating visit. Unfortunately, my guide didn’t speak great English so I didn’t get that much information from him. That’s interesting about the salary. FYI, you can get a free shuttle there from Artisans d’Angkor two times a day.
Oh yeah right. I saw the shuttle bus. We thought about taking that but we had to drop by somewhere else. But it was a good offer.
Sorry that your guide didn’t speak English!! I guess not all guides are speaking English well. Our guy was pretty good though. But the farm was cool, huh?
These pictures remind me of the textile mills in India. Hope you can visit one day, Juno. Nice shots!
Very cool Juno, I really wish I had gone to one when I was there.
Great photos and interesting info Juno. I find it amazing how they get the silk out. Very cool.
Cool! I never knew how they make silk and now I do. Great photos. I doubt these ladies make more than your guide. Do you think he was just fishing for a big tip?!
Cool photos! I recently posted photos from a silk factory in Uzbekistan:
http://gomadnomad.com/2011/01/26/uzbekistan-silk-factory/
Thanks! And I liked the photos from Uzbekistan silk factory. It looks similar but different too. Same same but different-
What a great way to spend some time in Siem Reap. Nice photos.
Thanks for walking us through the process. Interesting post.
Awesome! How could I have missed this? I’ve been to Cambodia twice! I would totally go see this next time. Thanks for the post! — Michelle
Glad to hear that you liked it! Yes this silk farm was kind of cool. Hope you to see it next time!
Great pictures and post. I’ll be in Siem Reap in a few months. I’ll have to check this out.
love love love this post. As a rug dealer I am always interested in the material processes that go into the art of weaving. Another interesting tidbit about using rusts to create brown dyes, is that over time that color will start to oxidize and corrode…it’s one way of seeing if natural dyes were used in the process when looking at antique rugs with brown in them.