We are now in Hoi An which is a smallish town halfway down the east coast of Vietnam. Before arriving here we had heard a lot of good things about Hoi An as its a really authentic Vietnamese town with no high rise buildings at all, but mostly because its the tailoring capital of the world! After reading up a little before arriving and speaking to other travellers who had just come form here, we discovered that you could get any peice of clothing tailor made for you for a few quid!! So Finch and Sandra (our Chilian friend) spent 2 days before arriving on the internet researching the clothes that they wanted making, i just decided i was gonna see what the quality was like then maybe get a suit or two made. We eventually got to Hoi An around 4.30pm after leaving Hanoi on a overnight bus at 7.30pm the night before! We got told it was only 14 hours away which on a overnight bus is great because when you wake up you arrive at your detination, but as per usual in Vietnam, they lied... so after swapping buses at a place called Hué and having lunch etc etc our "14 hour" journey took nearly 20 hours all in all! As soon as we stepped off the bus and started looking for a room, a lovely young Vietnamese girl on a moped decided to help us find a cheap room (later we discovered her help was in exchange for us to visit her tailoring shop). We had a look at a few hotels and guest houses and found that the room rates here were far more expensive than the rest of Vietnam, mainly because across Vietnam at this time of year they celebrate what is called Tet (Vietnamese/Chinese new year) so during Tet which lasts for a week from 13th Feb - 20th Feb, prices all over Vietnam go up to as much as quadrouple the price... with this in mind, when I found us a nice 3 star hotel with swimming pool, gym and free internet for $18 a night for the three of us, we decided to take it and enjoy some luxury for the next 3 days.

Hoi An's town is quite small and the streets are lined with small boutique tailoring shops that all look very old and french, it looks like a small sea side town but its not on the sea, it actually sits on the river and there is a market there everyday that sells everything! Laura and Sandra decided on the second day that they were going to have custom made shoes done and I opted for a suit, so we went to the lady's shop who helped us find the hotel to see what she had to offer. After much deliberation Laura decided not to get any as they didn't have heels high enough to suit and she was unsure as to how they would turn out... and we all know how fussy she can be! Sandra on the other hand went for three pairs of shoes. When you go in, you sit down and look through magazines to see what it is you want, you can even bring your own pictures of clothes you have seen back home and they will copy it exactly to how the picture is, or you can even just design your own clothes and they make it all perfectly! Once you have decided you go and decide what material you like and then you get measured for the fitting... it then took them just six hours to make my suit from scratch, including a fitting where you can have any adjustments made! The suit I had made fits like a glove and the best thing is they keep all your measurements on file, so I can email them from home with the colours I want and they will make it and ship it home for less than £50! Sandra's shoes however were a different story... she told the lady the designs she wanted, picked the materials and got measured up, "come back tomorow at 9am to collect the shoes" she said, so Sandra went to get them the following day only to be told that the shoe maker had gone on holiday for Tet so no shoes! And we were leaving that night so there was no time to go elsewhere! So in the end and after the girls spending two days looking for clothes on the net, I was the only one who got anything made! Walking back from the shops we passed a small shop selling local red wine for around £1 a bottle so we all decided to have a red wine, cheese and ritz crackers afternoon round by the pool... only we found that there was nowhere that sold proper cheese so we had to make do with Laughing Cow soft cheese triangles! They were really nice with the biscuits and wine though and a mega way to finish the day.

In between visiting tailor shops and lazing round the pool, we filled in the rest of our days by doing our other favourite hobbies... eating and drinking! We had some really good cheap food at a few returants before we found a section of the town called food stall corner or something like that anyway. It's basically a section of road that has row after row of wooden tables on, and at the end of each row has its own chef who cooks the food fresh for you at the end of his table... and the food is sooooooooooo nice! Each chef has his own name above his station in the form of Mr Rim or Mr Hong or what ever his surname is, all the menus are very similar and the prices are too so its really about who does the nicest food or has the best reputation or as we found, where has room to sit as they are so busy all the time. Hoi An has three unique dishes that can only be found here, one's called White Rose which is prawns wrapped in a really soft rice paper with chilly and oil, Cao Lau which is a bowl of mixed noodles with slices of pork and fresh veggies, and the third and our favourite was fried Wantons which are like huge doritos with fresh veggies and what ever meat or fish you choose on! So we had all three most of the time as the food was so good and cheap too, and the beer was only 3000dong a glass too which is cheaper than water! After 3 days here in Hoi An we really enjoyed it as we had a nice hotel with pool, tailor made clothes, amazing food and, unlike the rest of Vietnam we have visited, the local people here are actually really nice and friendly... we would like to stay a day or so longer but we have to head further South now to the beaches of Nah Trang! x