Open daily from 8:00 AM until 5:00 PM, the Angkor silk farm is situated in most wonderful and charming areas in the Cambodian countryside and spend around 20 minutes from the center of Siem Reap province. Visitors can visit this silk farm covers an area of 8 hectares, of which 5 are utilized for the mulberry trees plantation, and enjoy a guided tour and learn all about silkworm harvesting techniques, the silkworm breeding process, silk-making process, and even about the many artisans who work at this eco-friendly silk farm. The guides will give you more information about mulberry trees, silkworm farming, cocoon unwinding, preparation of the silk threads, ikat technique and silk weaving. I am certain that you will be inspired by the dexterity of the craftsperson with silk threads. And, don’t forget to buy a few souvenirs for your friends and relatives while you are here, as there a huge amount of various artifacts for sale. To go to the Angkor silk farm, you can use the free transport service from the center of Siem Reap that runs twice per day at 9:30 AM and 1:30 PM.
The Angkor silk farm additionally highlights a huge showroom where you can purchase high-quality silk products that were made in the workshops you just visited.
When you arrive at the Angkor silk farm, the entire place looks truly beautiful. It looks as though they assembled it exclusively to please Western guests. Cambodia silk is huge part of the Siem Reap tourism industry.
Our first stop was to take a glance at the mulberry plants. They have a substantial field of it on the grounds that the mulberry leaves will be utilized to feed the silk worms.
Mulberry plants lined up. The silk worm’s job to find the mulberry leaves to eat and fatten themselves up.
Silk worms feed on mulberry leaves. When they eat enough, the worms begin making their cocoons and after that rest inside. The worms believe they will have an undisturbed rest and later transform into lovely butterflies.
Silk worm cocoons for them, it is not intended to be. Once the cocoon is at the right age, they are " harvested’ " and sent to the production line. There, the cocoons are boiled with a specific purpose to make it easier to pull the silk threads. There are kinder methods for extracting silk threads without slaughtering the worms, yet they don't appear to be practiced here.
Silk cocoons need to be boiled before the thread is taken. Every silk cocoon can produce a rather extensive thread. At this stage, the silk is still harsh and thick, dissimilar to the ones we see at the market; however you would already be able to see that sparkle that we as a whole connect with silk materials.
Silk threads are extracted from the cocoons. Once the raw silk is accumulated, the following stage is to color them into a wide range of hues. Here they utilize natural dyes from herbs and plants.
The silk threads are then colored individually, submerged in these hot vessels.
After the silk dying process, these colorful silk threads are the final result.
There are many colors of silk after drying. However, these threads are still raw silk. They will need to be thinned even more before they can be utilized. In fact, you can use rough silk, but you don’t see large portions of those in the market. The young ladies below are preparing the silk threads for weaving, and they appear to have a decent time doing it.
With regard to weaving, the farm does it manually, and they make some gorgeous looking silk materials which will be sold later for more money.
Related topic: Artisans Angkor - Silk, Art & Craft Shop in Siem Reap Province, Cambodia
