What a brilliant few days it has been! Once we got settled in Hoi An
by the early evening we immediately got involved and set off out to
find a tailor and get measured up! With literally hundreds to choose
from we figured we could walk round for days checking them all out and
be none the wiser, so we just took a gamble and went to the one
recommended by our guesthouse. No sooner had we stepped through the
door than we were seated and had the 2011 Next catalogue thrust under
our noses!

It all seemed a bit of a minefield at first but our woman was soon
breaking everything down into simple decisions to make and before we
knew it I had chosen the style and material for a suit and Hutch had
decided on not one but two dresses!

During the measuring up I had a distinct feeling of the scene from
Friends with Joey and then Hutch was nicely told that 'you have big
bum'! It was actually a really fun hour walking round specifying all
the finer details (such as the angle of the pockets?!) for these
things to be custom made for us, and all at a really good price!

We felt realy good for having got sorted straight away so that we
would have enough time for any alterations and so we rewarded
ourselves with some 30p happy hour beers and an amazing fish cooked in
banana leaf!

On Wednesday morning we headed straight into the old town to explore
and had a brilliant few hours wandering the narrow streets lined with
silk shops and tailors and just soaking it all up; the place had a
really really nice feel to it despite the CONSTANT drone of "hello you
buy something?" no matter where you went, coupled with the "hello,
moto" at every corner in between!

After taking in the Japanese bridge and some of the other sights we
stopped off in the market and ate lunch sat amongst the locals as we
tried the local speciality cao lau, which was gorgeous and definately
one of the best local dishes we have had! We then by pure chance
bumped into a woman who we had had recommended to us and before we
could say 'no thank you' I had a pair of jeans and Hutch a third
dress!! Maybe we fell for the flattery of 'very beautiful' and 'very
clever'! On the plus side though, it seems we are becoming a bit more
decisive these days!

After a bit more perusement in town we had to go back for our first
fitting of the dresses and suit. The moment Hutch walked out in her
first one I was a little blown away and couldn't believe how quickly a
sheet of material had been turned into that! We made some changes,
and I somehow ordered 2 more shirts since they felt so good (not the
10 our woman tried to get me to order though!), and then in the
evening had a few drinks to celebrate everything coming out pretty
much as we wanted!

Since we were having such a nice time we decided to spend an extra day
in Hoi An and so after a welcome lie in and another fitting on
Thursday morning, we took a walk round the market. It seems
impossible to leave without getting sucked in to buying something and
this time I ended up with a pair of shoes to complete my Vietnamese
outfit!

By now we had realised that any time we needed the loo we may as well
use it as an excuse to stop and have a beer since it cost 1,000dong to
use the toilet and only 3,000dong (less than 10p!) for a mug of fresh
beer - no brainer!! So regular stop offs at any of the small places
along the river front had become an essential part of the day, which
pleased me greatly!! Even a sham boat ride down the river didn't put
a dampener on anything!

It was an early start on Friday morning as we took a trip out to the
Cham ruins of My Son, which were nice enough but a bit too much effort
for what they were really! On the plus side the weather was way
warmer than what we have had for the last 3 weeks - just in time for
the beach! Once back in town, we had a busy time (after more cau lau
and fresh beer) waiting to pick up all our stuff and then get it
packaged off home - only 3 months to wait now! The end result was 3
dresses, 1 suit, 4 shirts, 1 pair of shoes and 1 pair of jeans all
tailor made and homeward bound for less than $280 - not bad!

As we walked home through the busy streets, we reflected on how lucky
we were and how easily we have started to take for granted dodging
motorbikes and women in Vietnamese lamp shade hats on our way to yet
another cheap beer! Hoi An has definately been one of our fave places
in the whole of Asia and we had such a good few days!

We were a bit gutted when our bus rocked up to find it was one of the
crappy ones (sans WC) rather than the brand spanking new ones - it
seems we just got lucky for the trip from Hanoi! But this was
possibly our last really long bus journey :-( so mustn't grumble too
much.