Here we go 'round the mulberry bush

We were going to visit another temple today but we found out we needed a 'temple pass' and we used the last day on ours yesterday! Doh.
Then we decided it was too stinking hot to go round another temple so we went crafty instead. Visited silk farm and weaving workshop, silver plating, wood and stone carving, marquetry and silk painting. Very nice posh associated shops and fair working conditions (well as fair as it gets out here anyway - 8 hr days 6 days a week paid by the metre of silk produced). Had our usual success at avoiding the coach loads!
Time for associated silk worm 'did you knows....'
Mulberry bushes are cut 4 times a year
Thai mulberry is used as it has bigger leaves and produces more silk
Silk worm sex lasts 12 hours and then the male dies (this is of course nothin compared to previously studied glow worm maggot sex!)
And this was the point at which we started to feel sorry for the little worms that have quite a cute face (in an ugly worm face kind of way)

20% of the cocoons are allowed to live and hatch to become moths ready to start the cycle again. Unfortunately for the other 80% they get baked in the sun and then plunged into boiling water, this has to be done as it easier to get the silk off the cocoon if the moth is still inside!
Never will I view silk in the same way - I'm surprised I haven't heard of an animal cruelty lot going against silk production!
By the end we could both tell the difference between raw and fine silk but we just couldn't justify the cost even with Cambodia discount so we went for ice cream instead - what a surprise!!!
After that managed to find adaptor plugs for the donated laptops and also printed our documentation so they have very nice user guide now. Just need to find some speakers but if we get stuck with those maybe we can just give them a cable and they can get hold of the ones that were under our window the other night!
Many apologies for no pictures in the blog recently - for some reason the Internet here has been really slow for the last few days, struggling to download pages let alone upload photos. Still, have found hotel with nice pool and free wifi so we're off there for the day tomorrow as our anniversary present - bought the factor 50 today so hopefully won't burn! Maybe their free wifi will be faster!