Blog : Hoi An

To be honest, we were all pretty looking forward to moving on from Hue to Hoi An. It was probably to do with the prospect of good weather and shopping as much as anything else but Hue and I hadn't really fallen in love and so I wasn't sad to say goodbye when we boarded the bus at lunchtime on the Tuesday. We walked to the bus office from our hostel, with our backpacks on, which always makes any distance seem much further because we walk a lot slower! And boarded the bus lovely and sweaty! It wasn't too long a journey for us - it should only have been three and a half hours (it wasn't obviously because our bus ticket is with camel travel - the s***test bus company!) but the bus was still sleeper style with the funny bunk beds, as it was going all the way to HCMC. The five of us girls, Helen, Christa, Al, Kate and I got the lower back seat, which was five fully reclined chair bed things next to each other. It was great all being together but you wouldn't have wanted to sit in that place with people you didn't know as we were a pretty on top of one another! The journey ended up taking about five or so hours, round winding roads and the sides of mountains and as I tried to catch up with blogging I felt really quiet travel sick so had to keep having breaks! You know the roads are wiggly if even I feel travel sick!! We arrived in Hoi An about seven o clock or so and as we got of the bus we were greeted with a little man holding a sign with "Liv Lawson - Sunflower hotel" on it. A free taxi transfer to the hostel I had booked for us all, result! We were split across two dormitories in the sunflower hotel as there was seven of us and only six beds in each but it didnt matter. The hotel felt really swanky and not like a hostel at all! And when we checked on the receptionist said if we wanted to extend our stay at all (we only normally book into a place for one night so we can check it out before committing to more nights) we should do it quickly as they were normally always fully booked. We extended straight away but Tom and Sebastian left it until the following morning, as they wanted to check out the bus schedule and the place was fully booked! The hotel had a pool, outside bar and a free buffet breakfast with eggs any style and fresh pancakes - nom nom nom, all for £4 a night!! It felt like luxury!! On our first evening we walked along the main road towards the restaurant and what looked to be the centre of the city on our maps for some dinner. We past literally hundreds of tailor shops and all got so excited for all the things we wanted to get made! Hoi An is famous for having over 1000 tailors and you can get anything from a suit to a bikini to thigh high leather boots made! We were hungry though and with the boys who weren't interested in stopping to look at all the samples of shoes and handbags and blazers on the way to food!

We had dinner at a nice Vietnamese place called Bamboo. I ate spinach and garlic and fried cauliflower with red rice, which was absolutely delish! The veggie options in most restaurants are good as it is the diet that all Buddhist monks adopt. Eating from street food stalls is a bit harder as a) you have no idea what stuff is called to even try and order and b) everything is cooked in meat stock which defeats the object of not eating meat to try and avoid dog anyway! Everyone had local beer and I had a nice lemon shake as the local rum is quite sweet and I just didn't fancy drinking that evening. After our food, was everyone said was really good, the owner of the restaurant have us all a few shot of her fathers famous rice wine - sake. She showed us an article in a Hoi An guidebook about how it is made and why it's so delicious, so politely we all shotted the little glasses of it but it was f***ing revolting, like a really strong schnapps that burnt your throat all the way down to your belly! We all pretty much rolled home that night and into bed - so much travelling over the past couple of days had really taken it out of us and we were all knackered!

The following morning we got up and I took full advantage of the free, all you can eat, buffet breakfast, thinking it would mean I could skip lunch and save some pennies! The boys went straight to the bus office to try and book their journey down to HCMC for that evening but found it was fully booked for the next few nights and so we put it on our to so list for the day to get our transfer in a couple of days time sorted. After waiting for Helen whilst she sorted her Indian visa application out and dropping mine an Christas stuff at the laundry lady over the road from the hotel we were ready to leave. Kate had a Skype date with a friend and Al fancied a chill day though so Christa, Helen and I headed to the bus office and then to explore the town and find a tailors that we liked :) It was a good mile walk from our hotel to the bus office and we must have passed fifty tailors on the way and when we made it into the centre of the old town the were streets upon streets of shops. The roads seemed to divided into specialities, show tailors, traditional clothing tailors, high end tailors, cheap ones, dress shops and more but we struggled to find one that had material in a print we liked, offered a good price, made good quality items and generally just run by someone we liked (an. That seemed happy rather than really surly!) We pokes our noses into millions of shops, which kept making us want more stuff made as we saw it and then we would get put off all together by ridiculous pricing. Christa wanted to get a pair of long leather boots made to fit her calfs and Helen wanted to get everything made so we had to retreat to a cafe for lunch, a bit of wifi Topshop browsing and a think as we were a bit giddy at seeing so many clothes and shopping and choice!! We had a pretty disgusting Pho, which is a Vietnamese noodle soup and mine was definitely beef flavoured, even though I asked for un-chai (vegetarian) so it didn't go down v well :(

Next door to where we had lunch, down by the river we found a shoe shop which had a leather Christa liked and they seemed to understand the style of boot she wanted. In all the shops the my have heaps of samples made so you can point at a style and then choose your material and they also have loads of - bizarrely - Next catelogs to get inspiration from. Christa had a picture though of the style she wanted and pulled up more on their computer. We got all the way through the boot design process, which material, what style toe, length, measuring her feet and agreeing a good price and then we fell at the last hurdle when deciding the heel style. The shop had no more heels left in the style she wanted and all of the alternatives were either hideous or completely the wrong colour. It was really disappointing to have gotten so far down the line and then walk out of the shops. We must have all say for an hour or so chopping tiny samples of leather from the piles of larger samples each to make our own shoes from before deciding none of them were quite right. We went through this process more than once in a couple of shops and it was actually surprisingly draining! Mid afternoon we even had to stop for a coffee break to recuperate, message the girls and find out where they were and talk through our disappointment at none of us managing to get anything made and the hilarity of the day - we were all feeling quite stressed, delirious almost and full of that crazy laughter - everything seemed to be funny! At the Moon where we stopped for a refresher I ordered a hot peach tea, which came in the cutest of battered tea pots - the place was quite shabby chic, very Shoreditch - but as with most fruity and herbal tea, it smelt a lot nice than it tasted! Two middle aged and quite Eco traveller looking blokes came and sat at one of the tables near us (the kind that have long pony tails and wear trousers that zip off into shorts) and struck up a convo with one of the local ladies with a big basket of s***ty necklaces she was trying to sell. Christa recognised one of them as a weirdo on her flight into Vietnam and so we were giggling and then got caught in the act as he recognised her and started talking to us. We had a very bizarre conversation with them at the same time as they talked to the Vietnamese lady about how many necklaces they wanted to buy for loads of people they named off a list. The told us they ran a push bike exploration company and brought a gift for each person in the group at the end of their trip as a well done and this time it would be these necklaces with pictures of animals representing each year. They asked out birth years and gave us each a free necklace (plastic penny on a shoelace!) with the corresponding animal - mine was a horse.

We got to about six o clock and decide it wasn't worth walking the log walk back to the hotel an that we would just continue sticking our noses into all of the tailors am moseying round the town until 8:30pm when we were planning to meet the girls, Tom and Sebastian at Ganesh - an Indian restaurant opposite the place we'd eaten the night before, that had looked super busy and smelt amazing! We had the yummiest dinner there - I had a vegetarian thali, which was a mixed tray of small dishes: saag paneer, veg curry, lentil daal, raita, popadom, naan, rice and rice pudding. Needles to say I was very full after I had finished eating and I only managed to polish off about half of the huge tray of food. It was served on a sort of school dinner tray, with compartments for each different bit which was really cool and made us so excited for India!! After the meal none of us could move, so once again we waddled home and all passed out in bed!

The next day we got up relatively early and had breakfast, although none of us were that hungry after the Indian. Kate, Christa, Helen and I decided to have attempt número doss at the tailor shops and we had much better luck on the second day. We rented clapped out old peddle bikes so that we could get a round a bit easier. At first it was terrifying being on the road with all the beeping and over taking and driving on whatever side of the road you fancied but it became more logical and i liked the idea that pedestrians just walk slowly across the road and we all just weaves in and out of them. Only a little way down from our hostel Christa found a shoe shop where we liked the lady, the material, price and style of a pair of 'Tom' shoes and we felt like designers choosing which colours and patters would go together to make a nice pair and requesting different stitching styles and shapes to the front end. The lady completely got exactly what Christa wanted and after a bit of bargaining and Christa deciding to have two pairs of oriental and plain toms made a price was agreed and her feet were measured. We felt like this was a much better start to the day! We had all done loads of internet research the previous evening so were better armed with an idea of what we wanted to haves made with pictures and fabrics to show the tailors. We wandered around the tailors again looking particularly at fabrics and patterns and it took a while until we'd all seen a couple that we liked but that were not quite the right colour, material or price so we kept looking. We did begin to get a bit fed up but I was absolutely determined that I wanted to have a silk kimono jacket/dress made in Hoi An, as it was the thing to do and it would be a really special piece of my wardrobe when I get home I thought. I happened to just wandered into a tailors who completely understood what I meant by a kimono in a Nicole Ritchie sort of style and gave us a really fair price rather than lot of the shop ladies who had either said the top was impossible or given a ludicrous price! The quality of the stuff in the shop was really good as well and a bit alternative to the standard brides maid style dresses and boring suits we had seen in most places. We liked the two ladies working there and when we said we couldn't quite find the material and prints that we wanted, instead of letting us walk out of the shop they offered to take us to a material marketing an hours time.

Over the road from the shop Christa had spotted a little sandwich stalk that always seemed to have a huge gaggle of both westerners and locals Qing, so as it was lunch time we decided to head on over and check it out. The stall was selling banh mi's which are traditional Vietnamese sandwiches with a hearty filling. Sort of the Vietnam version of subway! Christa said they're quite hot in Canada and shed had loads of them and that they were good so we decided to all try the real deal which was indeed cheap and delicious - under a pound and made right in front of me on a crusty French baguette! Yummy! I had cheese (dairylee - the only 'cheese' they eat here!)and a fried egg in mine along with all of the salad trimmings and the girls had the chicken, pork and pâté options. After scoffing our faces and feeling thoroughly satisfied we hopped on our little bikes and followed the shop ladys daughter(?) on a moped to 'material street'. We had to brave a terrifying roundabout where cars and mopeds were flying everywhere so we all followed suit with the person ahead of us and clung to the pavement side and went the wrong way up the traffic, before bumping up onto the path and stopping. We went into a few fabric shops on the street, which were piled high with materials in different colours, textures and thickness. We were completely overwhelmed to be honest! I wanted a cool print in bright colours and ended up falling in love with about 25 different ones and I couldn't choose so we had to take samples of all of them back to the store! I was looking for a really cool oriental pattern as well that would look good as a smart little blazer - I thought a good thing to get tailored to my body and one that will still fit, even if I get even fatter thanks to India! I couldn't though so settled for my kimono in a really bright river island esque print in yellow and navy and a pair of bright floral trousers. We got all measured up, which was a slightly depressing part of the experience and I chose not to look down at the belly and hip measurements she was taking - blissful ignorance! We left a small deposit each for our items and left, until our fitting the following day.

Al and the boys met us on mopeds at the material shop and together we all biked to a swanky wine bar we'd seen earlier in the day. We shared a couple of lovely bottles of red between the seven of us and enjoyed being flash packers for the short while! We had to get the bikes back to the hotel by 530pm so we pootled home a little tipsy and dropped them off. Later that evening Christa, Helen, Kate and I went to the small restaurant next door to our hotel that had loads of lovely planet etc recommendations for some authentic Vietnamese food. They said when we ordered that it might be a little slow as everything was prepared freshly in the kitchen. Obviously we agreed to this, unknowing that our wait would be almost two hours for fresh spring rolls, wantons and pho (which all take less than ten mins to make!) The food was good, but not so excellent that it was worth the wait unfortunately, so we didn't rave about it! We then headed to a club called volcano, which was offering and all you could drink deal for £3. Everyone was game and it was the free shisha for groups of 5+ that won me over. The club could hardly be called a club, it had about twenty people in it max and we arrived pretty late, about 1130pm odd, had a pool table and a football table and half a dozen stools. The music was alright though, normal pop music rather than the Asian covers of things like Katy perry and one direction! We were at the bar for a fair old while but I found it very difficult to use my unlimited drinks stamp on my arm as they were so sickily sweet. Even the fin and tonic must have had four spoons of sugar in it! After playing doubles at pool and showcasing my hit and hope tactics we headed home, on the back of moto taxis. I was wedged on the back if one behind Al and pretty much clung on for dear life praying! We all got home in one piece though. Vietnam has a very annoying little scam though where taxi drivers etc say that don't have the right change just to rip you off that bit more. Gggrrr!

I was up relatively early the next morning, as I was excited about our clothes fittings! I had breakfast with Christa and then we collected our laundry, packed up our backpacks and headed out to the cash point before we could check out and settle the bill. On the way back we pasted the shoe shop that was making Christas toms so we dropped in to see if they were ready. The lady said she could get them delivered in a few minutes so we sat and waited. When they came I was so jel as they looked brilluant. The oriental silks next to the plain coloured cottons looked really good together and we were so impressed that we couldn't stop looking at and touching them, the whole way back to the hotel! We passed the girls on the way, heading to the clothes shop so we said we'd meet them there for the fitting... An we hopped on our clapped out bikes for the second day running after checking out and headed back into town.

The clothes all looked great, I loved my kimono, it was so brightly coloured and so versatile as a dress and jacket, and the navy lapels made it look quite smart so I thought if I wanted to, it could even be a work top too! I loved the print of the trousers, although the length wasn't quite right - the beauty if shopping in a tailors however is that you can just say that its bit quite right and pretty easily stuff can be altered and changed! The lady thought the trousers needed to be a bit tighter on my bottom and there was a five minutes of chat about the size if my arse and how big it was, which was quite funny! Kate had a pair of trousers made as well, in a think oriental patterned material, purple and hold, which looked great and also a shirt made out of the navy version of my yellow kimono material. The shirt was so perfect it didn't even need any alterations! Christa had a maxi skirt made which looked great and Helen a long dress, a short dress and a kimono too. Everyone's stuff was either perfect first time round or just needed a little tiny alteration and both Christa and Kate decided to have kimonos made too and Helen the same trousers as Kate (all in the space of about three hours before we were catching the bus down to nha trang!) I really wanted to have a black boxy blazer made in a gorgeous oriental thick silk I'd found but the lady said they didn't have enough material and time was tight making all our alterations and new bits so I decided to quit whilst I was ahead! We had a lovely bike ride in the sunshine around the old town of Hoi An and saw lots of local houses and cute kids playing in the streets. It felt very civilised! We cycled all the way to the end of the main road we'd been on and came to a small port. There was a lady at the end selling soft drinks and asking for help saying she was very poor. We all felt a bit guilt tripped and although none of us actually wanted a drink, we dutifully sat down and had one each. The lady started talking to us and told us she was four mo the pregnant (she just looked fat and flobby to us) and that her husband died in a motorbike accident recently. She said all of it with such unemotional we didn't believe her and the boys had said they'd met someone the previous day, exactly the same. It was very awkward talking with her as the only things she seemed to be able to say and do were point to her belly, say baby, hold up 4 fingers for four months and say baby father, dead and she did the sleeping motion and then a motorbike I guess symbolising an accident. And in that situation it's terrible to admit it but we all got the giggles! I had to leave the little table and walk away so that I wasn't being directly rude! It was just so unbelievable though, especially as you could see into their house and a man was asleep in the only bed we could see! We then went to a cute little cafe back in town for coffee and fruit smoothies whilst we waited that last few mins until our next fitting. The clothes weren't quite ready so we went back to the hotel to drop off the bikes, collect our backpacks and arrange to meet Al at the bus office, which would give is a little extra time for any last minute alternations, which there were! In the end we were all really satisfied with our purchases! Both of my things came to £2, which for things that fit me exactly isn't too shabby I thought!

At the bus station the toilets were so gross SE had to surrender all dignity and have a tree way wee while hanging in to the little bit if scaffolding outside the very grotty flooding public toilets. We gobbled our banh mis we'd brought for the bus and stood with wee dribble all dorm snogs from drip drying! Nice!!