Siem Reap Silk Farm and Acoda Orphanage

In early July, Jed and I went to Siem Reap. We caught a bus from Phnom Penh which took about 5 hours. Siem Reap was nothing like any other place in Cambodia I had seen. It was very westernised, jam packed with pubs and cafes and restaurants and massage parlours. There is even a street for westerners called "pub street". There are little laneways leading off pub street with quaint Italian cafes, icecream parlours and garden bars, much like Melbourne. Felt nothing like Cambodia, except for the tell tale tuk tuk drivers bugging you every step ("tuk tuk Miss", or "Sir" sometimes!) and the notorious Dr Fish Massage tanks on every corner! Jed was offered heavy drugs several times, must be his suspect shady facial hair. We soon found the markets; the markets along the riverside selling colourful pants and dresses, mostly from Thailand, silver jewellery, shoes, wooden souvenirs and oil paintings of the temples and the Night Markets, with much of the same, but with slightly higher prices for tourists. 


We discovered a gem of a place, The Blue Pumpkin, a bakery and icecreamery with a upstairs floor with wall to wall couches and folding lap tables, menthol infused cold refresher towels and crisp air conditioning. It was a welcome sanctuary from the outside bustle. 

We found out about a free trip to a silk farm, with Artisans d'Angkor which was an eye opening experience. Here, mulberry trees are grown and the leaves are picked and fed to silk worms which reside in trays in the nursery, where they are fattened up to produce silk. They eat for 26 days continuously and when they are fat enough, they make cocoons, expecting to turn into silk moths. Unfortunately for them, this will not be the case as the cocoons are boiled to kill the pupa and make it easier to extract the thread. 

Coocoon shells in the sun

Raw silk thread being extracted from boiled cocoons

Getting thread straight from the cocoons

Working at the loom on intricate patterns

The raw silk thread is rough and thick, and dyed using natural dyes from herbs, plants and even rusty nails. The silk is thinned further then hand weaved on primitive looms by women who earn less than $90 a month. The work is intricate, repetitive and time consuming. I was fascinated by how these women have the art down so precisely. The silk thread is actually dyed at intervals along the strand, in order to create the pattern when it is woven on the loom. So the colours on the threads all need to line up to reveal the pattern - talk about tedious! I have much admiration and respect for this craft, but also great sadness for the quality of these women's lives, holed up in a warm shed doing back breaking, finger numbing craft for such little pay. As tourists we feast upon purchases of silk scarves in the market, without a thought for the person who crafted it.

Check out all the threads she has to keep track of!

The same evening we visited Acoda Orphanage for a free Apsara dance performance as recommended by Trip Advisor. The children put on a musical dance performance every evening and afterwards tourists are asked to give a  donation for their education.