As distant parts of your memory may know, Laos (and Thailand etc) are renowned silk producers. Luang Prabang night market is stuffed full of the most lovely hand woven scarves and wall hangings in beautiful colours . And you might know, silk is one of my favourite things (along with dewdrops on roses, whiskers on kittens etc). But...
Now you might think I'm being silly, but silk is not vegetarian. Really. The silkworms (moth pupae) are boiled alive to get the silk from their cocoons. Lots and lots of them die to make one scarf. True, they are not "wasted" because they get eaten - they are a particularly popular street snack in Korea - but that's not the point. The point is that I am very, very tempted to buy some of the beautiful silk on offer.
And as Andy pointed out, it is almost certainly better for the environment to buy silk than cotton, because of the huge quantity of pesticides used on cotton. Which is a very good reason.
I have been wrestling this one since we arrived in China really, but mass produced Chinese silk doesn't have half the magic of these individually produced pieces. I haven't bought any yet.....
Update: whoops! My concience lost, but with style.