Today we’re going to visit Tan Chau, Vietnam. It’s a small city just across the border from Cambodia. Tan Chau’s claim to fame is a special kind of silk produced here. We’re going to go see where it’s made, but I’m more interested just to see what life in a small town in this part of the world looks like.
Our first stop in Tan Chau is at a silk factory. But how would we get there from where our boat was docked? The number one mode of transportation in Tan Cau appears to be – by far — the motorbike.
Have Cyclo, Will Travel
If one doesn’t go by motorbike, there’s another really good option: you can hire a cyclo. A “cyclo” is a two-wheeled buggy with a two-person bench seat, pulled by a guy on a bicycle. You could call it a bicycle-powered rickshaw.
There’s been a natural progression on this trip. In Bangkok, we rode around in factory-made, three-wheeled tuk-tuks powered by automobile engines. Then in Cambodia, there were “Cambodian tuk-tuks” — two or four-wheeled carts pulled by motorbikes. Now, in Vietnam, we have two-wheeled buggies pulled by bicycle: cyclos.
We hopped aboard cyclos to get from the dock to the silk factory. They’re really fun to ride in. The only sound is the warm breeze blowing by your ears. There are no seat belts or safety measures, (even for us pampered gringos), so there’s an element of excitement. I mean, you have to hang on! But since you’re not the one doing the peddling, all there is to do is hang on and enjoy the ride.
Tan Chau Silk
We made it to the silk factory with no casualties. It wasn’t a huge operation, but it was no mom-and-pop business, either. Some serious machinery was chugging away. Inside, it was loud, and it smelled like machinery. I could smell the grease and oil keeping the machines humming. It wasn’t a bad smell — just a “mechanical” smell. It occurred to me that turn-of-the-century garment mills were probably something like this, but on a larger scale.
According to our guide, a type of silk that was considered to be world-class used to be produced here in Tan Chau. The silk was of high quality, but what made it special was a unique black dye made from a type of tree that grows in this area.
Tan Chau black silk was well-known to high-end fashionistas, but eventually other silk-producing areas came up with lower-cost alternatives that were almost as nice. Business slowed down dramatically. Then, over the years, the recipe for getting the silk just right was lost.
But now, purists have re-discovered “the real thing,” and the market for Tan Chau silk is picking up. The people who run this small factory are striving to re-create the old process for making the silk that put Tan Chau on the map. I’m no silk expert, but the bolts of finished product we saw were really exquisite.
We moved from the silk factory to a place where a handful of people and machines produce rattan mats and similar items. This was a smaller-scale, more labor-intensive operation.
Each person making a mat sits in front of a machine that’s the size of an upright piano. The operator feeds in one piece of straw at a time. The machine sucks it in and does the rest. This operation also seemed pretty turn-of-the-century to me.
Back to the Boat
After touring these two small-scale factories, we jumped back on our cyclos to head back to the boat, which had moved. Our first ride had been short. This one was long enough for us to have a good look around.
Tan Chau seems to me to be a sleepy little country town – just add water. We cyclo’d past numerous small businesses, stores, and places to eat either inside or on little tables out front. Most looked like mom-and-pop shops except for the occasional motorbike dealership or marine products store.
On the trip back to the boat, cyclo drivers pulled twenty-or-so of us tourists in a cyclo caravan. We must have made quite a spectacle for the locals. Everyone, including the drivers, was having a good time. What is it about three-wheeled vehicles that makes people happy?
To be continued…
