Silk Village

Cambodian silk farms are found throughout the country.  We rented a small boat and traveled up the Mekong River from Phnom Penh about an hour to a small family owned silk farm

 Small boat on a big river...

Thousands of boat people line the sides of the Mekong living off the river in small boats

One of the new large hotels line the bank across from Phnom Penh

A bomb crater as the Vietnam war ended along the banks of the Mekong river near Phnom Penh ...and started it all

Water buffalo along the banks

 Many places along the river we watched cattle being bathed

 Kids playing...

A common street food are small snails or crustaceans they dive for in the river.  We see them on flat carts being sold all over Cambodia

 Crabbing...

Sleeping...

As the boat passed we watched this lady in the water...soon a man popped-up beside her with a basket of these snails

 Silk cocoons after the moth is hatched have a very fine silk fiber which is boiled and separated...

 300 cocoons provide one strand 330 meters long

Silk worms hatch eggs which grow into caterpillars for the next cycle...they repeat this process four to five times a year

Twenty to thirty basket platters hold the eggs until hatched - they will feed the caterpillers finely cut up tea leaves

One strand...eleven hundred feet long

Loom

Raw coarse silk before washing

 One strand 330 meters long...dyed with barks -roots- flowers- minerals - leaves (yellow colors comes from bananas)

Beautiful fabrics created...this silk piece will take weeks for just a ten foot section

Always a cutie to unload a tootsie roll on...

Amazing intricate tie dying process to construct silk art

Quiet village street

Many Muslim communities along the river

More boat people on Phnom Penh's riverside

 Always nice to spot the American flag...