Loyok Village

Loyok, June 4th 2011

I first knew about Loyok Village from my "2nd bible": Insight Guide Bali & Lombok. Then I found plenty sites on the internet mentioning Loyok Village. As I love handcrafts and am always amazed by handcraft-artists, I was certain to visit this village.

Nevertheless, unlike my visit last year to Banyumulek Village for pottery and Sukarara Village for weaving tradition, Loyok Village wasn't like I had imagined it would be. It was not so bustling.

Thanks to Pak Sofiar, our driver, who managed to find me a neighborhood where I could witness the process of bamboo plaiting.

Bamboos cut off from bamboo trees.

First, the outer green skin is peeled off. You can see them on the bottom of this photo. This is how part of the neighborhood looked like.

Next, the peeled bamboo rods are cut into pieces, leaving the joints apart. I asked whether the joints are used, our village guide said, no. I think that's a pity. I would have at least combine several of them and form a flower pattern to enhance a bamboo basket, for example.

The peeled and cut bamboo tubes. They need to be dried under the sun.

Next, the bamboo tubes are sliced into thick or thin slices according the need.

The most outer part of the bamboo tube has the most quality. Once again the bamboo skin slices are dried under the sun.

  When it comes to thin and narrow bamboo sheets, a cutter will do. Just give a small cut at the edge and tear it apart with your hand.

   Slice by slice, the bamboo is teared apart.

 And now the weaving process starts.

The village guide persuaded me to try to weave. Wow, it's not as simple as it looks!

  When a motif is wanted, like on this pouch, the bamboo sheets have to be dyed before being weaved. Unfortunately, the dyeing process wasn't on site.

 To make a piece of weaved-bamboo sheet more flexible to bend, the sheet is watered a bit. The bowl seen on right of this photo is the bowl of water. You can see the the end of this weaved-bamboo sheet looks darker. It's because it's wet. That part is going to be bend to form a basket.

 Besides bamboo, rattan and wild grass are also used. The one seen in this photo is wild grass. Similar to the bamboo weaving, this dried wild grass is also sliced into thinner slices.

 Number 1, was dyed with a chemical substance called "PK". I couldn't find any reference about "PK" in the internet. Hopefully I had heard it right. Anyway, the products dyed with PK is the most expensive. The reason is because PK is also a substance used to produce an explosive (bomb). Due the bomb issue in the recent years in Indonesia, the governor has suppressed PK supply. Consequently, the price of PK raised from 22,500 IDR per kilo to 600,000 IDR per kilo. But even one has the money to purchase much of PK, he has to obtain a letter which certifies what the PK's purpose.

Number 2, was dyed using powder made from jackfruit (nangka) tree's branch.

Number 3, was dyed using gambier (gambir, sirih). The brightness of the color depends on the amount of gambier you apply. For your reference about gambier, you can check here. 

Number 4, was not dyed. Just plain.