Clothes made of black-dyed lai luk kaew silk is a cultural identity of people with Cambodian ancestry,common in Si Sa Ket. The word lai luk kaew refers to the rhombus patterns on the silk that result froma special way of weaving, while the black colour is derived from the unripened fruit of the ebony trees, amajor ingredient of the traditional months-long dying process, which is done repeatedly for over a dozentimes so that the material is completely black.Ban Muang Luang in Huai Thap Than district, 38km or so west of Si Sa Ket’s downtown, is one of several villages where the black silk is still produced. Here, you can learn about every step of making the material and the resulting costumes, from sericulture, silk yarn spinning and weaving to dying the cloth and decorating the tailored products with patterns made by sewing colourful threads on the black-dyed silk. With suchembellishment, called saew, the price of a black silk shirt can hike from 2,000 baht to 3,500 baht or higher.