Unusual Siem Reap Tourism
Attraction: Incense Factory

I don't think many people know of this Siem Reap tourism attraction. It was interesting nonetheless! With the majority of Cambodian being a Buddhist, incense is probably as important as food. Probably.

Each family in Cambodia, if they're Buddhist, have at least one altar at their homes. They pray everyday, and each time they do, they burn incense.

We had an unusual opportunity to see how those incense were made, on our way to the Beng Melea temple.

When I heard about incense factory, automatically I thought about a big building, with smoke flying up high from the chimneys, and workers lining up near heavy machinery. What I encountered was nothing like that whatsoever.

It turns out that the factory is a home based factory. So the scale is much smaller that I've imagined. However, they seem to be churning out a good amount of incense sticks.

How do you make incense sticks?

Did you know that the incense sticks are made from bamboo? They take the inside part of the bamboo, cut and slice them into thin parts, soak them in water, and then start applying the fragrant powder and coloring.

We saw 5 people actively working on them. Each of them doing a different task than the other.

Below is the early stage of the production, where the woman is slicing up the bamboo into thinner parts. Look at how many sticks she's finished on the right side.

The worker expertly slice up bamboo parts into thin strips.

Then comes the soaking part in those blue plastic barrels and containers. They soak it so that the incense lasts longer when they are burned. Once done, then comes the applying of the fragrance powder and the coloring part.

A vessel full of bright colored dye.

The incense are dipped into the coloring several times in order to make them thicker. Between each color dipping, the incense must be left to dry for a while. These incense below are almost ready, having been colored and dried several times.

Drying incense sticks under the hot Cambodian sun.

Once everything is done, comes the packaging part. And you can see that they have quite a good amount of incense that are ready to be sold.

The packaging looks very professional, as if it was made in a big factory.

By the looks for the factory condition, producing incense sticks does not to be seem a highly profitable business. It might be because they are only a small supplier.

The factory's backyard

But then again, they might have done very well indeed, because they have a concrete house, instead of a bamboo constructed house.

A concrete house is a modern house, much more desirable than the bamboo house.

Our guide informed us that there are not many 'factories' like this in Siem Reap, only about 5 -6 families, which I thought was rather weird. I assumed that to satisfy the demand of all Siem Reap inhabitants it would take few more suppliers than that. 

I thought this quick trip to the factory was very interesting. Certainly this is not a 'normal' Siem Reap tourism attraction, but it's highly enjoyable and educational. So if you every find yourself going to Beng Melea, don't forget to stop for half an hour to see this small operation of the incense factory!

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