This morning we visited the small town of Oknatay. This village is referred to as the Silk Village. When we disembarked we boarded tuktuks that would take us to Silk Island, a silk weaving complex that employs women who have lost their husbands. Other than the silk weaving and silk farming areas, the complex has a garden with different statues of animals, including buffalo, fish, bears and a snake! There was a pool that contained two giant fish – real monsters.
Picture 1 – Silk Island
We were shown the silk worms as larvae, worms and in their cocoons before seeing the entire silk weaving process, from creating the strands of silk to weaving the finished products. Each weaver has a specific pattern that they know how to weave. It is a different process from the Vietnamese Silk as the cocoons are produced in mush shorter time and are made with less silk thread. Only the golden yellow cocoons are used and the rest are burnt.
Picture 2 – Silk Worm Cocoons and Silk Weaving
After a short period in the shop (they had lovely scarfs or sarongs, all in beautiful colours and patterns) we continued to walk around the complex. There were several life sized models of animals and birds and lots of different fruit trees. We also passed the fish pond containing three very large fish.
We returned to the ship before continuing to sail towards Angkor Ban which we’ll visit tomorrow.
In the afternoon there was a presentation on Cambodia followed by a presentation on how to fold towels to make a menagerie of different animals – maybe Tiggy and Polar will be having new friends visiting in the future.

Picture 3 – A Menagerie of Towel Animals
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