A former OSS officer named Jim Thomson settled in Thailand. He loved Thai silk and decided to promote it as an industry for the Thai people. Today We visited the home/museum where he lived. His home was made
Up of three traditional teak homes that he moved to Bangkok and joined together surrounded by beautiful gardens. Then we visited a nearby workshop- one of the few remaining that dye and weave silk the pre-industrial way.The directions given to us by the staff had us wander over a canal and through a bunch of narrow back alleys. We were just beginning to think that we were invading on a lot of poor Thai's private homes when we saw a tiny sign indicating that the old wooden door to our left was the place! We awkwardly entered the "home"and sure enough they were
Dying the silk threads in huge vats by the doorway and drying the thread on poles hung in a storage area on the second floor. Talk about working at home! We walked through their living space to get to the small shopping space in back. They were not weaving that day but we could see the looms tucked in a corner. Check out the photos
Sorry about the delayed
Posts but we had to wait several days to get to decent Internet.
On to Northern Sumatra and the Jungles of Bukit Lawang
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