Weaving

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Today Julie and Becca headed out of town to a vocational training centre for women, the aim of the centre is to provide disadvantaged Lao women with weaving and tayloring skills which can then be used to earn a wage. The centre no longer has funding so relies on profits of sales from its shop and visiting tourists trying their hand at weaving.

First of all we were shown around the centre by the manager, we were shown how they dye the threads using only naturan dye, such as green tea, and squashed insects for indigo! We then walked around the girls who were weaving on the big looms and were told to pick a loom and begin! We were a little shocked as neither of us had a clue what to do we didn't even know who to sit on the thing. The lady talked us through our first couple of rows and let us get on with things, every so often the younger gilrs would walk by to check were were ok and would also rspond to our crys for help as we dropped this stick thingys that make the pattern (it only takes them 2 days to set up the sticks and there we were dropping them)

After 6 hours of solid weaving we had managed to make a piece of cloth about 15 cm x 15 cm! We were both please with our efforts untill one of the Lao girls weaving in the same room us us showed us how much she had woven, it was about 50 cm wide and about 5 m long of very inticate pattern, I think we have some more to learn!!

Meanwhile, Pete had been off entertaining himself. He started at the Lao National Museum, this has various exhibits on lao culture and early history, but most of it is taken up by exhibits on the the second indochina war and the rise of Pathet Lao (the communist party). The whole thing has a very anti-American slant, referring to "imperialist US forces" and the crimes they committed. It's a decent museum and kept Pete ammused for a couple of hours. After a lonely lunch down by the river, he spent the afternoon relaxing and reading.

After Pete was very rude about Beccas weaving efforts (I tried my best) we headed to a pub for a Lao BBQ which was just like the Thai one in Phuket this time we knew what we were doing and had a delicious feast. Here we bumped into Tom and Ingrid who were also on the Slow Boat so spent the rest of the evening chatting to them, Julie was suppose to join us but we later found out that she had got a bit lost and couldn't find the pub.

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