One of the places we stopped during our time in the northern Vietnamese countryside was the village of Lung Tam, where Hmong women weave and naturally dye linen into beautiful garments, starting with flax. The fiber artist in me loved seeing this process so much.
Above–spinning the flax; below–drying in the sun:
To flatten the linen fibers they are placed on a round piece of wood, and the artisan stands on a rectangular stone on top of the linen and rocks back and forth. I got to give this part of the process a try. It was hard to keep the stone under control and I finally just sort of lost my balance and toppled off…
It seems like we crammed a thousand experiences into a week, and we certainly did try to make the most of our trip. The countryside-wandering part of our trip was fast-paced on paper but the calmness of life in the mountain villages kept it from feeling too hectic. >>See all my photos and thoughts about our trip here.<<<
