3 February, 2024

Xin chào everyone,

(hello in Vietnamese),

We spent our last morning in Laos taking a silk weaving class at the Ock Pop Tok Center. “Ock Pop Tok” means “East meets West” and it was founded in 2000 by a woman from Laos and a woman from England. It started with five weavers, and now they work with over 500 artisans to share Lao culture through textiles. 

Though we saw some silk weaving in Chiang Mai, we gained a deeper appreciation for the work that the weavers do. We started by picking the pattern and color for our placemats, and then they assigned us each a master weaver to help us make them.

The two patterns we could choose from were already set up on the looms, as this preparation can take 2-3 weeks. The weavers showed us how to spin our thread onto bobbins and then placed them in the shuttles for us.

They started about 15-20 rows on the loom, and then let us continue. Some of the pattern parts were not terribly difficult, but the very middle involved a lot more effort. For this, the weavers sat down at the loom again to show us how it worked and then let us continue.

When we were done weaving, they detached the placemats from the loom and finished them off by twisting and tying the ends for us.

The rest of the tour group met up with us at the center for a lovely lunch overlooking the river.

Afterward, we departed for Hanoi. We were sad to say goodbye to Laos, but looking forward to exploring a bit of Vietnam. After we landed, we grabbed a delicious dinner near the hotel. Hanoi is much bigger, busier, and louder than Luang Prabang and we already wish we had more time here.

We are only in Hanoi briefly – we head out first thing tomorrow morning to see the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and then we head to Ha Long Bay for an overnight on a junk boat! The boat does not have WiFi, and we will have a very busy day back in Hanoi on Monday so you may not hear from us until Tuesday.

Lots of love,

Sarah and Spenser