Day 16 - Mekong Cruise Day 5

This mornings activities started with a trip along the road to Oudong, Cambodia's former royal capital from the early 17th

century until 1866. Today, Oudong is a place of pilgrimage for Cambodians. While here we were treated to a Buddhist Blessing Ceremony at a monastery.

We headed back to the ship via Koh Chen village to visit the local copperware workshops, the bus dropped us off down the road and we walked down the street. The local children came running out wanting to high five us all and give us hugs, one kid had spiderman on his clothing and wanted to show it off, so I tried to get him to do the spiderman finger pose, I don't think he quite nailed it, but there is hope. We ended up at one of the shops where they showed us how they could make silver plated items and compared them to the real items.

Back on board, we had lunch as the shipped left dock and began to cruise to Oknha Tey, known for its silk weaving traditions. Wasn't too keen on going to another silk weaving factory seeing we had just seen one the other day, but this one was different as they actually showed you how they made the silk itself, the entire process all begins with silkworms, which feed on mulberry leaves until they spin their cocoons. About 80 percent of the cocoons are collected and boiled so the fine silk threads can be unwound, while the other 20 percent are left so the moths can hatch and start the cycle again. Even the husks from the hatched cocoons aren’t wasted, they’re used to make things like soap.

The silk threads are cleaned, dyed, and then taken to the looms. Watching the weavers at work was incredible. Their hands moved quickly as they turned the dyed threads into beautiful fabric, sometimes using a method called ikat where the patterns are dyed into the threads before they’re woven. The finished silk looks completely different to how it started.

Seeing the process made me appreciate just how much time and care goes into something as simple as a scarf.

Watch as the village women create beautiful Khmer fabrics from their wooden looms.

I saw some of the deck crew outside playing what looked like Hacky sack, their Hacky sack is called Sey, sometimes spelled sei, it uses a feathered shuttlecock instead of a beanbag. It was a bit of a break for them as we are tied up to a tree overnight so won't be going anywhere.

At 9pm there was a quiz which we failed epicly at, the first question was even something I should have known, when was Facebook first created, at first I wrote 2005, then crossed that out as I remembered that wasn't right as they celebrated their 20th birthday already, was deciding if it was 2003 or 2004, I ended up putting 2003, unfortunately it ended up being 2004, I so should have known that. The winning team had twice as many people than any other team, maximum number of people was suppose to be 6, they had 8, practically all the other teams were saying they should be disqualified or at least have their points cut in half. After the quiz came the Karaoke, I would love to say I partook, but nope, I just sat and watched the mayhem of the others singing unfold.