Boats and Cigars
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Tue 5 Dec 2017 23:07
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Nam Pan Village Boat and Cigar
Makers   Nam Pan Village is well known for its
diverse range of workshops. Visiting one of the large, stilted buildings gave us
an opportunity to experience local cultures and learn a little of their
livelihoods. Blacksmiths and bamboo craftsmen as well as the one-legged
fishermen are common trades in the area but we have come to a business
specialising in teak boat building and cigar making. We climb out of our trusty
steed and meet three very disinterested chickens.
Stalls surround us covered in teak goods including
elephants, model Intha fishing boats, screens, platters and pipes. A lady greets
us, she will show us the boat building side of things but casually begins to
point out her own stall.
 This fifteen
metre beauty is the standard means of transporting goods and tourists.
Four workers, one month and a price tag of two thousand five hundred dollars in
solid teak, that’s without the engine.
  Joint and caulking.
 The front of the
beast.
  Pulpit decking
and tools of the trade.
   A twelve metre, family-sized boat nearing completion. The teak is still cut
by pitsaw. An individual fishing
boat.
 We headed inside to watch three ladies making cigars. Cheroots are a local type of cigarette covered in dry leaves and have
different flavours to anything we have ever tried. Banana. mint and anise as
well as herbs are very popular.
  Cigar making
equipment – tobacco, filters, glue for labels and roller. Measure to trim
to size with scissors and the finished
cigar.
 I
took a video clip of this lady, she made three cigars in
forty one seconds. Her daily target = five hundred and fifty. Sitting on
a tiny wooden stool, chatting away happily and keen to slow one down to show us.
Roll two leaves between two pieces of stiff
plastic, add the filter and tobacco, keep rolling and out pops the cigar. Label
held in place, glue added to the ends and rolled. Once several have been made
put on measure and trim to size. Day in day out for a few dollars in
wages.
  Cigars in a plain
box and in pretty tubes. We were offered one
to try but were told they are very sweet (to be honest they didn’t small too
great and knowing the taste would stay with us, we gently
declined).
  Not sure what this cat
was up to on the side of a stall.............
 ..........but he sprang from quite a
height, landing at our feet
unfazed.
ALL IN ALL SUCH SKILL, SUCH SPEED
FASCINATING TO SEE SO MUCH PRODUCED WITH SUCH
SIMPLE
TOOLS |