It turned out
that The Irish Three were on the same sleeping bus to Hoi An. We met on the bus
to Nha Trang and decided to stick together in Hoi An. I ended up grabbing a
room with Dave, while Rita and Louise got a room downstairs. The bus dropped us
off a few kilometers outside of town so we had to hoof it to the center of
town. The busses always drop people off at guesthouses that subsidize the bus
company, a dirty practice, especially when the guesthouse is so far from town.
Hoi An is filled
with classic French architecture and beautiful streets that feel more like
Europe than Vietnam.
As with many towns in Vietnam,
tourism drives the local economy. Hoi An has earned a reputation for its lovely
ambiance and unparalleled tailored clothing. Literally half the shops in town
are custom tailors with countless examples of their work outside. This place is
a clothing shopper’s wet dream. Inside the shops are stacks of clothing
magazines, each filled with designs and outfits the shops are happy to
reproduce.
Japanese covered bridge and temple
Point to a suit, hand-pick some fabric, get measured, and come back
in five hours. It’s really that easy. A top-of-the-line tailored cashmere wool
suit will run about $75, and a nice dress shirt will be under $10. The low
prices on custom apparel extends to shoes, hats, dresses… anything you could
possibly want.
With a new job
around the corner and a lack of nice clothes, I decided to splurge and buy a
suit. I was measured at 12:30, and the suit was ready at 5. It’s certainly not
anything you’d find at Armani, but it aint half bad either. When I get back to
the states I’ll see what my fashion advisor has to say about it. Dave also
bought a suit, and the girls bought a few outfits each.
For lunch and
dinner I tried a few of the local specialties, fried wontons and white rose.
The wontons were meh, but white rose (a sort of dumpling dish) was quite good.
There’s also a local noodle dish that’s only found in Hoi An, but that will
have to wait until next time.
The next morning
we hopped on a bus to Hue, where we had half a
day to kill until the bus to Hanoi
left. While we didn’t get to explore too much of the town, we walked around by
the river for a while before grabbing lunch. The river has countless boats with
beautiful and intricate decorations vying to offer tourists a one-hour tour. No
thanks, but maybe next time.
The place we ate
had the worst food I’ve had in Vietnam
(Asia?), but it had a nice ambiance and free
pool. Every square inch of the walls/ceilings/tables is covered in permanent
marker, signatures and sayings and musings from other travellers. Not wanting
to be left out, we took our turns between games of pool. “If you don’t know
where you are going, any road will take you there.”
