I thought Nha Trang was fun, but man, Hoi An just blew it out of the water.

But before I start going on about Hoi An, I would just like to mention a few little things I like about Asia so far.

Number ONE: I like how in every pot of standing water (intentional or not) there are always fish and/or snails.

Number TWO: I like how, like Free Willy has become the name of the whale, New Year is always referred to as Happy New Year. For example, "On Happy New Year there will be very very beer!" (Direct quote from my self-proclaimed "boyfriend."  Explanation to follow.)

Number THREE: I especially like how the garbage truck plays music like a smelly ice cream truck, only all the adults run out to it with bags of trash, instead of children with fistfulls of coins.

Number FOUR: I like how every Asian born human being has the ability to squat down, with their knees up to their ears for extended periods of time and not even appear uncomfortable.

Number FIVE: I really like how the old lady on the beach dug around in her nose looking for who knows what, then tried to sell me rice that she had made. Two days in a row. Yum!

Enough of that, now on to Hoi An. What a fun and sweet little city!  Its got the quaint little streets of a Asian Europe.  Mom, you'll love it.  Let me just go over a couple funky experiences that I had while there. First and foremost, as some of you know, Hoi An is renowned for its tailors. Everyone ( or everyone sane that is) who passes through Hoi An ends up in one of the many tailor shops and had at least one article of clothing made for them. I had 12. This did not come as a surprise to me either, after close to 6 months on the road (with just that 3 week break at home) I've been wearing pretty much the same clothes the whole time and I was so ready for a couple new outfits. The second I got into town I headed off to the cloth market, found myself a promising stall and sat down with the girls there to pick out my new clothes. This was so exciting for me! If you have never had an outfit made especially for you, it is a great experience, and better in Hoi An, where it is cheaper than the states. (Though the plane fare may even the price out a bit.) The process started off with me going through some of the fat catalogues they had waiting for us customers, marking the items that looked promising, then narrowing the list down to a few. The next step was to go through each item, discussing the details and changing the pattern if I requested. The fun part for me was picking out each fabric and cloth that was to go into my new clothes, and there was a TON to choose from. The last bit was to get measured every which way, so much that I felt like Harry Potter getting his wand, I believe Ollivander measured the distance between his nostrils? I know, I'm a geek.

When finally finished, the girls were so thrilled with me for purchasing so much (I'm telling you, I needed it!) that they bought me Cao Lau for lunch, a typical Hoi Anese dish that Isn't found anywhere else in Vietnam, and it was quite good.

As I was walking out the door, with instructions to return in 24 hours for a fitting, another little Vietnamese girl grabbed me a dragged me over to her "shop." She had said something about my feet, so I assumed that shoes were next in store for me. But no, I got to her place, she sat me down and started in on my feet which turned out to be a 1$ pedicure. I wasn't going to complain much about that. Then she commented on my legs, "very long hairs!" And if you know me at all, leg-wise, you would have been so impressed with me because it looked like I'd actually shaved sometime that week, so what was she complaining about? ;) Then she introduced me to Threading, a hair-removal process that is something like turbo-hardcore plucking using string. I decided to do my legs, just to be able to say I'd done it, but it turned out to be the single most excruciating experience of my life. My poor little legs! Then the girl thought it was time to do my eyebrows, HECK NO! I was not going to subject my face to that kind of torture, and as my sister knows, I do not touch my eyebrows.

I thought I was done with that "spa" stuff when I walked out of that little room, but I had not been on my own, legs freshly "threaded," for more than an hour when another little spa-lady came up to me touched my shin and said "ah, very long hair." Excuse me? Did I not hear that exact phrase recently? Whatever. No more of that for me. Little did I know that for the next 2 days I would be constantly harassed by short women coming out of the woodwork to take me by the arm, ask me where I was from and comment on my eyebrows. Marilyn, stop laughing.

Later that first night, I was hanging out by the river when a Vietnamese guy, about my age, came up and introduced himself. Home (spelled Hung) pretty much became my semi-permanent shadow from then until I left Hoi An. He was very sweet and asked me what I was doing the next day. I assumed at the time that he was vying for the position of my moto-taxi driver and just said I was taking a bicycle to the beach, hint hint I don't need your motorbike. He said ok, and we chatted for a bit, as much as one can chat with someone who didn't speak any English at all two months prior. When I left that night, I thought that was the end of it.

The next day after I rode my bike 5k to the beach and had settled down on my sarong for an afternoon of reading, who should show up but Home! He sat and we talked for an hour or so, much of our conversation requiring drawings in the sand to help us understand each other. Eventually he asked me out to a cafe for that evening, and I said no thank you. Then he invited me to go with him out to My Son the next day, and I said no thank you. He said "very very 'no'" and looked so forlorn that I had to laugh and just say sure, fine, I'd go to the cafe.

Later that evening he did take me out to a cafe, full of Vietnamese and not a Westerner in sight.  Excellent!  He bought me a beer and we attempted to converse yet again. I have to appreciate his initiative. But what did he really expect from someone he could hardly talk to? Maybe the same as his mother, who seven years earlier had met an Australian and run off with him to Sydney. ;) We had a nice time though, and I really love motorbikes, so the rides on his, for free, really were fun. After the cafe we did a turn around the area down by the beach and back to town before I finally bid him goodnight at my hotel again. What a sweetheart.

As of now, however, I am in Hue, about 3 hours north of Hoi An. I spent a nice couple of hours on a bus next to a dude from Vancouver Island and we talked about books, William Gibson in particular. It always gives me a mini high talking to people who are passionate about the same things as me. But he was going on to HaNoi, how he was going to survive another 16 hours on that bus I will never know. I will surely be taking the night train when I head up there in a few days. The funny bit came when I was stepping off the bus in Hue. Who should be there waiting to catch the very same bus, but Peter! The Swiss guy I originally saw in Angkor Wat, then met in Phnom Pehn, then on the way to Chau Doc! We had exchanged emails in Chau Doc, but even though he had suggested it originally, he said "I will not use it, because we will see each other again anyways," and he was right! And it is likely that we will see each other in HaNoi before he leaves on the 19th, I would not be surprised!