Spinning Island Yarns
Activity: Don Kho weaving island and Phou Khong mountain
Location: Northern Champasak province
Tip: The trek to Phou Khong is a five-hour hike. Bring sturdy shoes and bathing gear.
A small island with a historic past in the Mekong river offers insights into cotton, silk and basket weaving. A nearby mountain beckons with the promise of panoramic views and wild orchids. Simple homestays are the main form of accommodation.
Peaceful end to the day
Peaceful end to the day
The experience: Don Kho is a small island on the Mekong River that was once the original capital of Champasak province during the French colonial period. Today it is a tranquil island famous for its silk and cotton weaving artisans. Visitors can make a day trip from Pakse or arrange an overnight stay with a local family or in a community run guesthouse which includes your Lao meals and the option for a guided walk around the island’s attractions with your hosts.
The island, which has about 450 residents, offers a wonderful opportunity to observe master weavers at work in a rural environment. They are happy to provide lessons in weaving to those who are interested.
Or if you are not a weaving enthusiast, enjoy the sandy beaches around the island and wandering through the villages immersing yourself in the daily life of rural Lao people.
Consider purchasing examples of the high quality, traditional textiles on offer knowing that the benefits go directly to the artisans’ families.
Don Kho weaving lady
Don Kho weaving lady
A trip to Don Kho Island can be readily combined with a trek to nearby Phou Khong Mountain which lies inside the Phou Xieng Thong National Protected Area, near the border of Thailand. The area is known for its sweeping views, abundance of wild orchids, volcanic rock formations and ancient Khmer ruins. The mountain area is also famous for a cave hermitage inhabited by Buddhist nuns who you may be able to visit.
From Don Kho Island visitors can take a boat up the Mekong River to the small and friendly village of Ban Mai Singsamphan. The village is inside the protected area. Visitors can spend the night with a local family and feast on freshly caught fish.
The village is perched by the river and is famous in southern Laos for its beautifully made fish baskets. Waking early the next day village guides will accompany you on a day trek to the mountain interpreting the folklore of the rock formations and the historical and natural attractions along the way.
Three days are required to visit both Don Kho Island and Khong mountain from Pakse. Or you can visit the destinations separately taking a day or overnight trip to Don Kho or a two-day trip to Khong mountain directly from Pakse (see booking information below).
How it helps: The people from Don Kho Island and Ban Mai Singsamphan have received support from the Mekong Tourism Development Project (MTDP) to develop and manage their own tourism initiatives. Homestay families, boat drivers and local guides have organized themselves into cooperatives in order to share the benefits from tourism.
Most of the goods, accommodation, transport and guiding services are provided by local people, so the revenue remains largely in the local economy.
Wild orchids in Don Kho
Wild orchids in Don Kho
To promote the distribution of benefits, a small percentage of the tourism revenue is taxed and allocated to a village development fund on both Don Kho Island and in Ban Mai Singsamphan. Your participation in this ecotourism programme helps to conserve the traditional art of silk, cotton and basket weaving in the region. It also provides an economic incentive for the villagers of Ban Mai Singsamphan to conserve the wild orchids in the Phou Xieng Thong protected area.
With the additional help of protected area entrance fees charged to each visitor, the village has established its own orchid conservation area and nursery, the first in Laos.
Visitors who book their tours through the Eco Guide Service in Pakse will also help to support and build the capacity of locally recruited and trained guides and that of the Provincial Tourism Office, the government agency responsible for sustainable tourism development in the region.
Don Kho dwelling
Don Kho dwelling
Location and booking information
Bookings for guided tours to both Don Kho Weaving Island and / or Khong Mountain can be made through the Champasak EcoGuide Service
Tel: +856 [0] 31 212021 located in the Tourism Office next to Lao Aviation in Pakse :
Or with Green Discovery:
Tel: +856 [0] 31 252908
Web: www.greendiscoverylaos.com
Or Lane Xang Travel in Pakse.
Alternatively, independent travellers can take a bus/pick up or tuk tuk to Ban Saphai village on the banks of the Mekong River, some 16 km north of Pakse, from where they can receive information and make all travel arrangements to both destinations at the District Tourism Office located in the handicraft market.
Independent travellers wanting only to visit Phou Khong mountain can take a public bus or tuk tuk from Pakse to Ban Boungkha village, some 34 km north of Pakse, from where you can hire a boat to Ban Mai Singsamphan and organize a homestay and village guides yourself. However, as village guides speak only a little English it may be more satisfying to arrange your tour in Pakse as described above which will also include an English speaking local guide.
For further information on the silk weaving on Don Kho Island see:
www.ecotourismlaos.com/activities/handicrafts/silk_weaving
For Phou Khong mountain see:
www.ecotourismlaos.com/activities/khongmountain
Map: Marker indicates Don Kho Island not Don Kho weaving island and Phou Khong mountain …
In response to the comment below, I think that it should be made clear that Saphai, Don Kho and other surrounding villages weave with a variety of threads, including both real silk and synthetic silk. Most of the weavers do their work according to orders made by buyers/wholesales. So, the fabric depends on what is demanded by the buyer. Wholesalers/buyers who sell cheap products will ask the weaver to use synthetic silk, while buyers who are selling higher-end products will have the weaver use real silk.
What is special about the Saphai/Don Kho area is their weaving skill, which is one of the best in the country, and the reason why wholesalers continue to do business there. So, tourists who are visiting the area should spend some time to look around and see what different types of products are being produced. If you go with a guide who can translate, you can speak with the weavers to learn about how they market their product, where they get their material from and other interesting facts, which is quite interesting in itself. They are also happy to show you how to weave.
Please stop using the word “silk” when describing the weaving of Don Kho island and neighbouring Ban Saphai. Local weavers here do NOT use silk — whether imported or domestic. It is synthetic! The term “new silk” is NOT silk.
Quite simply, if this contagion continues, it will cause the loss of all traditional knowledge of handling authentic silk within Laos. That would be tragic, and consequently tourists encouraging such ersatz crafts do cultural harm to communities.
Already across Southeast Asia the battle has pretty much been lost in the cultivation of mulberry for silk cocoons. (In one Lao village, we were told only two elderly women remain who know how to spin silk from a cocoon!) So it is essential to encourage NOW that the prevalence of synthetic fibres does not spread to other silk weaving areas in Laos such as Luang Prabang and Sam Neua. Already the markets of Pakse contain mostly artificial silk textiles, but sold as “silk.”
Moreover, the contagion of cheaper artificial fabrics competing in the market is quite frankly unfair to other Lao weaving communities who continue using real silk.
By contrast, we were impressed with the quality and work of Varitha Handcraft Silk & Cotton in Pakse. There, they not only cultivate silk and weave only silk, but their dyes are also natural, and not synthetic. This is not a village cooperative activity, however.