Hoi An is the tourism capital it seems of Vietnam, well for what we’ve seen of it anyway.
Almost the entire city centre is geared up for us – Australians, Germans, English, French… we certainly make the wheels go round. And unfortunately, both parties know it.
It’s a very pretty place, river that runs by the town, very old buildings/shopfronts line the roads with street vendors everywhere selling you name it – drinks, cigarettes, fresh fruit/veggies, snack food, street meat… not to mention the huge number of nick-nack vendors selling all kinds of crap.
It doesn’t have the pace of Saigon and is so much better for it. We have really enjoyed our stay here for a number of reasons:
- we all got tailored clothing – a suit, a tux, some dresses, bathers, shorts – some copies of what we had, some taken from magazines… some just conceptual
- tailored shoes – made to measure in whatever fabric you want and in any style
- great restaurants – had the best food of the trip so far here
- friendly people (for the most part)
- a lot more relaxed – it’s touristy, but in a good way
So to pick up on what we’ve done… we caught a taxi in to Hoi An and the driver didn’t know where our hotel was. So he stopped by the side of the road, asked a woman who gave good instructions on where to go, then for the next 5 minutes, quizzed us on what we wanted to buy here. Turns out her sister owns a tailoring business in the markets. We feigned interest and finally got away from her and onto our hotel.
The hotel is very nice – right on the river and is kind of resort-style, but a poor man’s version. Can’t complain for $45/night. We dump our gear and walk back across the river into town.
Who should be waiting for us? Yep – directions lady. She just “happened” to be walking by and showed us where we should go. We were hungry, so she took us to the “best restaurant in town” – no doubt owned by a relative. Funniy enough, the food was fantastic and cheap, so we were happy with the recommendation.
Whilst eating, we couldn’t help but notice her happen to walk by now and then, sit on the other side of the road apparently busy… As soon as we walked out of the restaurant, she was on us like a hawk. “You come to my shop now”. She grabs us by the arm and away we go. In some ways, it made it easy, choosing a tailor is incredibly hard, the prices vary hugely apparently as does the quality. We took a punt and her sister, the seamstress, certainly knew her stuff.
We got measured up, showed what we wanted and about 2hrs later, we were pretty happy with ourselves. We walked the town for the rest of the night until we had a late dinner at what must by a restaurant only reserved for Australians.
So our first day in Hoi An was very interesting and very enjoyable… Day 6 coming soon.