Originally Posted by letiole
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rjh: What weaving village did you go to? I went to one where they wove cotton. It was great fun because I don't know that they'd seen a tourist there ever, but, of course, I would have preferred to go to a silk weaving village. (I also understand that most of what's passed off as silk is actually rayon. I was told this is not intentional, but that most of the weavers truly believe their rayon is silk.)
Ban Phanom, 4km NE of town. We ended up getting a jumbo near the market for something like US$5, including waiting time. We didn't buy anything, though a friend did a lot of looking. I was all bought out after buying textiles, principally scarves, in Vang Vieng, to go with our Beerlao umbrellas.
I think we gave some samples the burn test to make sure what was claimed to be silk was silk. Of course then you're left with the thought that perhaps the sample wasn't representative of what you were buying. We discussed this issue at length while lying on a pavilion over the river in VV drinking Beerlao until we fell asleep or fell into the river. (Edited to add: yeah, I know you're supposed to pull a thread off of the item you're actually buying. My friend didn't want to do that.)
Even harder to discern (I can't) is Lao silk from Cambodian silk. You can usually tell Thai silk from Chinese silk, he says overconfidently...