East Meets West: A wonderful day at Ock Pop Tok

Today Mama organized us a whole-day workshop at Ock Pop Tok’s Living Crafts Centre (OckPopTok means East meets West in Lao), just out of town and down to the Mekong river bank from Phosi Market which is the happening market spot in Luang Prabang. In the morning, we will do traditional Lao Tie-Dye, and this afternoon we will weave a little place mat with the Master Weavers.

8:30am: we get picked up in a funky pink tuk tuk that takes us to the centre which is essentially several bamboo huts sprinkled around a gorgeous garden with a plunging view over the Mekong river. The recipe for a great place!

Traditional Tie-Dye

First, we get welcomed by Veo, the co-founder of OckPopTok, the lovely manager and our guide Kai. Sipping on some fresh lemongrass tea, we each receive a white scarf and two napkins to dye. Next, choose our designs. Now comes the hard part. Every item has to be folded differently according to our respective chosen pattern. We have to tie ribbons, snap on sticks, use elastics… this is not easy!!! 🥳

Luckily the wonderful staff is here to help us out. Chan, Nyai, Tee and Kai patiently guide us through all the steps. When the folding is finished, we need to go outside in the beautiful garden to pick the plants that will make our natural dyes.

I pick: Sappan Tree (pink), Indigo (turquoise), and Jackfruit (gold).

Vyas picks: Sappan Tree (red), and Turmeric (bright yellow).

Nilay picks: Anatto Tree (orange), Lemongrass (light yellow), Indigo (turquoise), and Jackfruit (gold).

Now comes the exciting part: the actual dyeing!

First we cut (or take out the seeds, or even smash up) our plants. This is seriously physical 😜💪. Then, we place them each into their own pot over a traditional charcoal fire to be boiled (except for the indigo leaves which we leave raw since we want a light turquoise – for dark blue, we would need to ferment the leaves first), and we wait. Meanwhile, we put our items in water with an alum crystal to make the colors adhere (this is called a mordant). When the plants are boiled (or smashed up well to make a liquid in the case of indigo), we dip our items inside to dye them. Next we rinse the items and, if we want to make the color lighter, soak them in salt water or, in the case of my pink scarf in ash water.

When we are finished, we can put the items to dry in the sun. What a super duper fun morning! Time to break for lunch (and a fresh coconut). We are served a large plate with little clay pots, each filled with a different delicious surprise. We have a mushroom salad with holy basil, white corn and sesame, banana flower & fresh coconut curry, coconut steamed red rice, sweet & sour peppers, and a fresh mango and melon to finish up. A quick nap in a hammock overlooking the river before we continue the day getting a glimpse of another skill: weaving!

Weaving

We start by choosing our patterns and colors. We all want the Naga pattern – apparently more challenging, but a popular traditional pattern in Buddhist culture. I choose pink for the background, and light blue for the pattern. Nilay chooses blue for the background, and gold for the pattern. Vyas chooses red for the background, and gold for the pattern. Now we need to spin our bundles of string onto small spools. We do this by spinning a wheel on which an empty spool is hung on to, ready to spin the string around it. This is called the winding process. It separates and smoothes the silk threads further.

Now we are ready to start weaving. We all go to our places, and our teachers start the weaving, before giving us the shuttle. Chan sits with Nilay, Vyas with Nyai and Anjali with Tee. We need to press down the left bamboo pedal to open the strings. If the shuttle is on the right side, we need to press the right pedal. Then we pass the shuttle to the other side and beat the strings with the beater once against the rest of the piece. The process is repeated again and again. To make a pattern, the master weaver changes the pattern heddle, string by string.

First we started by weaving 22 cm of our background color, then 4 passes on one color, 4 passes on the other color until we had 3 pattern-colored lines (in my case 3 blue lines). Then came the middle lined pattern. I need to weave one pink pass, one blue pass, one pink pass, one blue pass etc. The master weaver would change the pattern heddle before I put in a blue string. When this pattern was finished, would come 3 more blue lines.

Next comes the big pattern. To make the Naga pattern, the master weaver changes the pattern heddle, and you put in my case, one pink, one blue; one pink, one blue etc. Every time before I put in a blue string, the master weaver would change the pattern in the pattern heddle, she would change one or more little strings, putting them on a different screw level. When this process was finished she would lift the comb and tell me not to press on the pedal because the comb was already lifting the strings.

When the Naga pattern was over, the same process as before the pattern would start again except starting with the lines and finishing with 22 cm of pink color.

Finally, the master weaver finishes the piece with some white, before starting a little bit of a new piece (I guess so she doesn’t have to start all over). Then she takes scissors and cuts off my piece. Then she rolls the black strings of the former warp on her leg to make tassels. It looks great!!

By now it is 4pm and we are pretty exhausted. Happy, and exhausted. One last picture with our beautiful creations and our lovely teachers and it is time for us to pile into the pink tuk tuk again and bid farewell. We leave filled to the rim with amazing impressions. What a fabulous day!