From Opium to Oolong: A Day Trip to Doi Mae Salong

The geometry of this region was just stunning.

The view from the Phra Boromathat chedi devoted to the Queen Mother.

As part of the weekly schedule at the Friendly Farm near Chiang Rai, we would work a brief morning shift on Saturdays and then had the opportunity to accompany them to the city for the late afternoon and evening, at the end of which we would meet up and ride back home. We had Sundays off.

One week, having read of the nearby historic town of Mae Salong—where some Kuomintang from China hid out following the 1949 revolution, and where one of the king’s Royal Projects has transitioned the mountain slopes’ agricultural production from opium poppy to tea and other legal cash crops, and where there’s a wat—we decided to check it out.

Having spent Saturday night in Chiang Rai so that we could rent a motorcycle and zoom up the mountain Sunday morning, we commenced our zoom: Step driving, Pil clinging with both hands to the seat-bar behind him. It was a long, buttbone-battering trip. Our poor little motorcycle huffed and puffed its way up a steep grade, and more than once I, at least, thought we were going to have to push it. We coasted on truly the ghost of fumes into a little village high on the mountain and successfully filled up the tank. “Mae Salong?” we asked, pointing at the ground where we were standing. They shook their heads and pointed farther up the mountain. Puttputtputtputtputtputt-puttputtputt...

Ock Pop Tok!

Different stages of the Hmong New Year skirt.

I knew very little about weaving before coming to Laos. I still don’t know how to weave, but at least after our hours-long visit to Ock Pop Tock’s workshop in Luang Prabang, I know how it’s done, and just how complicated the doing is.

In almost every village in Southeast Asia, there are women weaving traditional textiles in dozens of ways. Some use cube-shaped bamboo looms, others use backbrace looms like the one we saw in the Karen village. In many villages, husbands build their wives custom-sized looms, combs, shuttles, and beaters. Brightly patterned cotton and silk scarves are sold at every other market stall in Southeast Asia, and half claim to be handmade. Whether they actually are, or whether the weaver was paid a living wage, are both gnarly questions.

Ms Yi is one of the young artisans inventing new and wildly complicated patterns for her weaving. Every part of the pattern is reflected in the off-white threads attached to the loom; it takes hours to attach.

Ock Pop Tok, which means “East and West” in Lao, sells only hand-crafted products with natural dyes, made by women paid a living wage, which is four times as much as they might be paid from another shop. The fair-trade company also develops relationships with dozens of individual villages all over Laos, and in conjunction with NGO partners, is one of the reasons why textile production lives on in these remote places.

This means that the prices are more akin to those you’d see in the West, but I’d much rather spend more knowing that I wasn’t supporting sweatshop labor in Cambodia. Most entrancingly, the workshop is open to the public, and there are free tours every day. It was one of the best days we spent in the entire country, and I learned a lot. More learning after the cut!