Mekong Blue Silk Weaving

Mekong Blue is a social enterprise and weaving workshop in Stung Treng that trains vulnerable women in traditional Cambodian silk weaving. The workshop is open to visitors and you can watch the entire process — from dyeing the silk threads to the finished cloth on the loom — while chatting (through a guide) with the weavers. The finished scarves and sarongs are beautiful and among the most distinctive souvenirs available in Cambodia.

The quality is substantially better than most tourist-market silk goods, and buying here directly supports the women who make the cloth. The workshop is in town, a short tuk-tuk ride from the riverfront.

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The Mekong Blue project was established after the 2003 ceasefire by the Stung Treng Women's Development Center to provide income and training for women affected by conflict and landmines. The silk weaving tradition it preserves is a distinctly Cambodian art form — the intricate patterns and the iridescent quality of the finished cloth come from a technique of resist-dyeing individual threads before weaving, producing colours that shift as the fabric moves.