Koh Dach: The Silk Island, and Why You Buy at the Loom

Koh Dach - Silk Island - is a long sandbank in the Mekong a short ferry ride upstream from Phnom Penh, and the striking thing about it is how ordinary it is. There is no entrance, no ticket and no show. It is a flat, green, almost traffic-free island of villages where a large number of households still keep a handloom under the stilts of the house, and weave.

You hear it before you see it: the wooden clack of a loom beater from under a house as you cycle past. Walk up and someone will wave you in. There is no obligation to buy and usually no English, and it is one of the least packaged things you can do in Cambodia.

The island also grows things - the sandy soil takes vegetables and mulberry - and in the dry season sandbanks appear along the edge that Phnom Penh families come out to picnic on at weekends. Go on a weekday for weaving, a Sunday if you want to see the city at leisure.

Getting there is a short ride north of the centre to the ferry, then a few minutes across the water. Tuk-tuk tours do the round trip as a half-day; by bicycle it becomes a full day and a very good one, because the island is flat and the lanes are shaded.

Knowing three words turns a souvenir stop into something worth the trip.

Hol is Cambodian ikat: the weft threads are tied off and dyed *before* weaving, so the pattern exists in the thread rather than being printed on the cloth. When it is woven the edges of the motif come out slightly feathered, and that softness is the tell. Cambodian hol uses an uneven twill that gives the surface a particular sheen. It is slow - a complex piece is weeks of work.

Pidan is the pictorial version, silk ikat woven with figurative scenes, historically hung in pagodas. The most technically demanding thing on the island.

Golden silk is the thread of the indigenous Cambodian yellow silkworm. Most Cambodian weaving today uses imported white thread from Vietnam and China because the domestic supply collapsed, so genuine golden silk is rarer, warmer in colour and costs more. It is worth asking about specifically.

How to tell silk from polyester: real silk is warm to the touch rather than cool, it creases and the crease softens, and it has an uneven sheen rather than a flat shine. The classic burn test - real silk smells of burnt hair and crumbles to ash, polyester melts to a hard bead - is one a weaver will happily do for you on a loose thread.

Buy at the loom. The same scarf is a fraction of the Russian Market price and the person taking the money is the person who made it. You can usually see the piece on the loom half-finished, which is the best provenance there is.

Prices are modest by any Western standard - a simple scarf is a few dollars, a good hol piece considerably more, and a pidan hanging is a serious purchase that reflects weeks of work. Pay the asking price for handwoven work; haggling hard over a fortnight of labour to save two dollars is not a good look.

What is not local. Plenty of what is sold on the island and across Phnom Penh is machine-made and imported. That is not a scam if it is priced as what it is, but do not pay handwoven prices for it. If a stall has fifty identical scarves, they were not woven under that house.

Beyond scarves: krama, the checked cotton scarf every Cambodian owns and uses as a towel, a sling, a hat and a bag, is the most useful thing you will buy in this country and costs almost nothing.

If you would rather buy in the city, Psar Toul Tom Poung, the Russian Market, is the place - see the food and markets guide - but you will pay more and learn less.

By bicycle is the best version. The island is flat, the lanes are shaded and there is almost no traffic, which is a genuine relief after Phnom Penh. Several operators run bike or e-bike day trips that include the ferry.

By tuk-tuk is the half-day version and the right one if it is hot or you are short of time.

Combine it with the city. A common and good shape is Koh Dach in the morning and the Royal Palace and National Museum in the afternoon, or the reverse.

Or with Oudong, 40 kilometres north-west - the royal capital for more than 250 years until 1866, with hilltop stupas holding the ashes of kings. Both are north of the city and pair into a full day.

Bring: small dollar notes, because nobody on the island is taking a card; water; and a hat, because the lanes are shaded but the ferry and the riverbank are not.

Manners. You are walking into people's houses. Ask before photographing a weaver, and if you spend twenty minutes watching someone work, buy something.