Artisans Angkor is an NGO that promotes quality handicrafts and sells them through a series of shops. And has a free tour of their silk farm - with of course a tour of their gift shop that is not intended to be quite so free. Anyway, it sounded interesting so off I went. The tour guide was a Cambodian who grew up in the US and had a really strong east coast accent and a very dry sense of humour - the accent seemed quite out of place! At their main workshop they do stone and wood carving, including huge commissions, make pottery, hammered silver, and lacquered and gilded art pieces.
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| Preparing lacquer-work |
A bus took us out of town to the silk farm, where they raise the mulberry trees to feed the silkworms and do the entire process from pulling the silk from the cocoons to making the thread, dying it with natural plant products and various sorts of complex weaving. Pretty impressive. I can understand why some of the complex weaves are so expensive - it takes several days just to set up the looms to do the weave patterns, let alone do the actual weaving.
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| Do you think the frog is part of the security system? |
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| Silkworm ready to skin a cocoon - reminds me of when we had Amos, our chameleon, as a pet and we grew silk worms for him to eat. They all grew up at once and we were inundated with silkworm larvae that were too large for him to eat. Never thought of setting up a little silk factory! |
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| Silk worms looking for a nice spot on the wicker to build their cocoons |
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| Dried cocoons - I'm afraid the process does not lead to a happy ending for the little pupae |
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| Boiling the cocoons to unwind the silk - the outer part is the raw silk, the inner part is the fine silk. |
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| Skeins of beautifully coloured silk |
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| Made into shining thread |
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| Spools of Ikat dyed thread - done line tie-dye - totally painstaking |
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| The final weaving process |
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| Traditional silk wedding outfits - one would rent these unless one was very wealthy |
After the silk tour I had a wander through the Siem Reap market looking at the range of foods for sale - for both locals and tourists.
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| Street food for lunch |
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| Who knew there were so many kinds of rice |
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| Everyone needs a lift sometimes |
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| Local spices and dried fruit |
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| The fresh food market was busy and bustling |
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| All sorts of vegetable greens |
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| Lots and lots of seafood, some of the fish still moving |
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| Some of the many kinds of fish |
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| Honeycombs |
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| Fresh poultry |
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| Sausages |
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| Dried fish |
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| And for the tourists - art, generally featuring monks and temples |
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| Fruit shakes are big as street food |
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| All I could think of was getting one of the fish species of mycobacterial disease when I saw these.. |
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| I think this was a girlie bar - the only one I saw although the sex trade is supposed to be quite in operation in Cambodia |
Midafternoon I hired a tuktuk and driver to go back to the temples to look at some of the carvings in the Bayon and try for the over-popular sunset at Phnom Bakheng - and it was certainly overpopular! The temple is on top of a hill - which you can either walk up, 15 minutes or so, or take an elephant ride - $20. For a 6:30 sunset, it looks like getting to the base of the stairs to climb up to the temple at 3:30 would be about right. I was later than that, but did make it up to the top in time for sunset but for anyone with less time on their hands, or less patience to wait in line, there are other equally good spots to see the sun set!
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| Back to the Bayon |
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| This one still had his face, although it rather looks like his feet were a replacement |
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| There was a lot of marching off to war in those days |
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| Cranes dancing, and perhaps a deer. |
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| A monk chased up a tree by a tiger |
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| Where the big boys hang out - non of them look like they are having any difficulty finding calories! |
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| Squeezing sugar can juice to drink |
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| The lineup for sunset at Phnom Bakheng |
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| Almost at the front |
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| 300 people are allowed up on top at a time, and to ensure that there are 300 of these temple passes. When someone comes down the stairs the pass gets handed to the next person who is waiting to go up. We started cheering groups of tourists as they came down, much to the confusion of some of them |
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| I made it up! The towers of Angkor Wat through the evening haze |
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| Part of a work in progress |
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| This balloon is on a tether - they let you up for a look, and then haul you back down again. Might be fun on a clear day. |
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| Me (I really do wash this shirt, every night) |
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| And the sun |
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| And it sets behind just as its supposed to. |
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