Our time in Hoi An is drawing to a close...in approximately 4 hours we will be getting onto our next overnight bus to Nha Trang! Let's just hope its a bit more comfortable and has no moist mattresses.

After we had a nice wander around Hue on tuesday we had a quick lunch at the hotel before getting onto our next bus. It was another sleeper - a much nicer sleeper - so our trip down to Hoi An was very comfortable and we got to have a little nap. Us 5 girls (me, em, jess and two girls we met in Ha Long) got the 5 beds at the back - it was like a little slumber party! :P

We got to Hoi An about 6pm exhausted. We stopped outside a hotel that looked pretty nice. We found out the price, looked at the room and it seemed almost too good to be true as we were also free shuttle bus to town (as its a 10 minute walk or so), free bike rental etc etc. We checked in, had a shower and then caught the bus in to town with a bunch of other people from the hostel. About 25 of us went for dinner together where we tried a couple local dishes. After accidentally walking out without paying for emily's part of dinner (oops.) we went to find some cheap beer. it cost 4000dong (approx 10p) per glass so we sat down and ordered 25 beers....after one round we had drunk the bar dry. ha! so as the others moved off to the next bar, 4 of us walked back to the hotel for an early night.

The next day was shopping day! We read about one shop in our guidebook so checked that out...we looked at a few others but this one seemed good so we headed back. Jess and I each ordered a winter coat, Em got a nice blazer made and jess and em both ordered a dress. We got measured and chose all the fabric before moving to the next shop. Jess and I both ordered a simple blazer and got to choose the lining and the main colour - this place is seriously awesome! I then went to have a playsuit made before we went back to the hotel. The sun was shining so we thought we would head down to the beach. We went to go borrow a bike and it looked as if none of the free ones were available. We saw they had some "nicer" "newer" bikes in a shed so said we could take one of them. (I put these words in quotations as the regular bikes are pretty dismal so nicer still means below average or s***.) After trying to charge us a dollar for each bike we spoke to the main guy from reception and he let us take the nice ones for free (as promised). We went down to the beach and enjoyed some sunshine before heading home for a shower.

We were then planning on going out all together for dinner. Once we were all ready we got to the lobby and asked for a shuttle. Oh no, the shuttle ends at 5pm, its only on ur first night you get a free one! Well...thanks for telling us!!! The girl was so ridiculously rude that us girls stormed off as we needed to go pick up some clothes anyway. We first went to get our blazers (which were made in approximately 4 hours) which were awesome. Then we got my playsuit which is AMAZING (if i do say so myself :P). Then us 5 girls couldnt find the boys from the hotel so just went for a meal together. We found this little place by the river where we enjoyed different things. I had grilled fish in banana leaf - yum! We had some home made ice cream from a cafe ran by an italian man...SUCH GOOD ICE CREAM!! We then ran into some of the people we met the night before, had one beer, and then headed home to bed!

We had a rude awakening at 7.30am by our crazy aussi friend who wanted us to go snorkelling. We said no and managed to sleep a couple more hours. The plan for yesterday was to go to the beach....when we woke up it was raining. Great. Instead we went into town for some breakfast (had a massive one for a bit more than a pound! Bargain!) Emily then went to order some shoes and I went to order some shorts! We then walked around a bit more waiting for pick up time! We bumped into the girls who were leaving that night so we all went for some more ice cream from the same place - it wowed us the 2nd time too. We went through the market to pick up some souvenirs. We got ridiculously hassled by these girls to buy some "authentic" tiger balm. Their initial price was 170,000dong......we kept saying we didnt want to buy any.......they were so desperate to make a sale that they sold us a little pot for 30,000dong....oh dear! Some more walking around before we got to go for fitting number 1 for our jackets and dresses. Some alterations needed to be made that we could check out again later that evening. I then got my shorts which had been whipped up in about 3 hours. We then headed back to the hotel for a shower and bumped into our scottish roomies from Hanoi! This place seems to be ridiculous for bumping into people....

After a shower we went back into town to get our next fitting. Jess had her dressed finished, both our jackets were finished (and are amazing) and then Emily got to go for a little ride on the girls scooter to go choose her buttons and then have another fitting at the other taylors house. She got taken down tiny little alley ways - pretty scary stuff!

We then went for a nice meal, just us three, at the restaurant we had had our beers at the previous 2 nights. I went for fish in banana leaf again (tuna this time) - it. was. incredible. The sauce was a bit different. So delicious! Both the girls went for crispy noodles which came out as a MASSIVE portion. Neither were feeling too well after that meal! We then went to the internet cafe for our respective skype dates before getting a taxi home - we had done enough walking back and forth from the hotel!

This morning we were woken up AGAIN by the aussi guy who wanted to say bye to us....even though we would see him later that day. He had been out the night before. Enough said. We slept until about 9, packed, checked out and borrowed some bikes to go into town. Sadly the sun was shining so we would have wanted to go to the beach but he had some pick ups to do! Emily's shoes had turned out so nice that I ordered a similar pair and Emily needed to have her final fitting for her blazer and dress. They both turned out really nice. We went for a pretty posh breakfast - SO much food again - and then picked up all the clothes. We did a bit more wondering before heading back to the hotel. On our way home we could see the clouds coming in.......and......it hit before we made it back. We were cycling through monsoon rain, unable to see anything. Thankfully it seems people dont tend to drive around when its raining so it was ok. We got back, had a shower and will go for a late lunch fairly soon.

Hoi An is a lovely place....and getting stuff made at the tailors is SO much fun! Would reccomend this place to anyone...just not our hotel as the staff are horrible!

Next update from Nha Trang!

Emma x