Today was an early start for our tour to Tan Chau. This town is famous for its silk weaving. Once we reached the shore via tender boat, we boarded (carefully) rickshaws for a ride through the town to the silk workshops. The streets were really busy with many motorcycles, people riding or pushing bikes with various goods for sale, cars and vans as well as the long string of rickshaws. But we saw so much – open shop fronts on both sides, then views of the river and the heavy river boat traffic. All the local people going about their daily life. Many of the houses are right beside the river and so have been built as stilt houses.
We arrived at the silk weaving workshop, dismounted the rickshaws and were invited into a room in the owners’ house. This particular family follow ancestral worship. Every lunar year they remember their ancestor on the day they died. On that day they burn incense at the shrine and the family and friends come together to remember. If they own land they may also have a shrine to the land god and, if they own a shop, a shrine to the god of wealth, etc.

Picture 1 - Shrines
Traditional silk making has made the Phu Chau (Tan Chau) District famous throughout southern Vietnam. The process was explained to us as we sat in one of the rooms in the owner’s house. Silk was originally discovered in China, Mulberry silk is the most common silk moth used. They are named as they feed on the leaves of the mulberry tree. Each moth can lay up to five hundred eggs. These eggs turn into silk worms that feed on mulberry leaves for thirty days. Each worm then spins a protective cocoon around itself made of a single thread 500 to 800m long, the cocoon is eventually the size of a cotton ball. Within the cocoon the silk worm transforms into a pupae which will eventually turn into a silk moth.
To collect the silk the cocoons are boiled, the kills the pupae, which are then eaten, the silk thread from the cocoon can then be unwound from the cocoon onto bobbins. The silk is dyed using various natural plants and then dried under sunlight for two weeks. The threads can then be woven into silk fabric, there are 500,500 threads of silk per roll of silk. Changing to a new roll takes a full day as have to tie on all the new threads by hand. We saw one person doing it but he was so fast could not see individual movements. In this particular factory there were fifty looms and although not all were working the noise was deafening. The workers choose not to wear any hearing protection. I was slightly deafened when I left, but it wore off! I can’t imagine working in that noise full time – the steelworks is noisy enough! And there we wear hearing protection.
Picture 2 – Silk Making
Once we had a bit of retail therapy – they had lovely silk clothes, I had to indulge – we got on the rickshaws once more and travelled to the rattan weaving workshop. Here jute is dyed then dried in the sun before being woven into mats and other goods. Different patterns are woven into the looms to make the mats. Only women work there as it means that they are nearer home to look after their children while the men are at work further away. Each woman will weave the same pattern for years so that it becomes automatic.
Picture 3 – Weaving Workshop
From there walked back to the tender down a path in between the houses. Once on-board, we were taken through some of the small tributaries, past fish farms and fruit farms where saw lots of rather ramshackle stilt houses right beside the river. And lots of boats. The local people make their living from the land. We arrived at Evergreen Island were we disembarked for a walk around the island. This is where fruit and vegetables are grown and then sold to the towns. The payment the farmers get is so very low but we were told that they were quite happy as they don’t need much and everything they do need is readily available around them. Saw bananas, coconuts, papaya, corn, sugar cane, chillies being grown but rice is not grown on this island. Some of the surrounding area was flooded as it is the wet season and the flooding season starts in August. However, because of the dams being built further upstream and the water coming down decreasing, flooding will lessen and these farmers will suffer.

Picture 4 – Evergreen Island
At the end of our walk we visited the house of one local, though we only went into the ground floor which was open to the weather. It was the part that was on stilts as it was likely to get flooded. This farmer had two cows as well as his other farming but they were for meat not for milk. From there walked back to the tender boat.
As we were getting on to the tender a bigger boat approached along the river and almost stuck under the bridge. They had to reverse and lower the shell before they could just manage to get under. Our guide told us that every boat has two eyes in front to navigate and to scare off the big fish. I think this boats eyes were having a snooze!

Picture 5 – Boats With Eyes
Soon back on the main river where we passed boats carrying rice stalks, rice, sand and similar goods. It is very busy as the river is their main thoroughfare. We also saw some sand mining from the river bed.
We have a free afternoon as we are crossing into Cambodia and the crew will be busy carrying out the border crossing formalities, and getting some of us visas! However, there is a cooking demonstration where we were shown how to make a hand rolled Vietnamese spring roll, I much prefer the deep fried spring roll. This was followed by a demonstration of fruit carving. For this the chef carved an ornate rose on the top of a water melon. Then he used two pomelo fruit to carve a very good Bugs Bunny type rabbit face.

Picture 7 – Fruit Carving
Later this afternoon I had a massage and manicure before dinner.
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