The Good, the bad and our stalker...
Trip Start
May 03, 2008
1
9
47
Trip End
May 02, 2009
Hoi An,
Vietnam
Monday, May 26, 2008
Now getting back to the shopping, Hoi An is full and I mean full of tailors. Every second shop will make you a suit, shirt, trousers, skirt or dress in a day. You just go into a shop, browse through Family Album/ Debenhams catalogues pick out the style you want. Then you look through rolls of materials pick out the one you want and after about five minutes haggling to agree the price they make your desired item of clothing. We spent the first day here slowly walking from one place to the next looking at things but generally taking it easy as they didn't really try the hard sell too much here which was a welcome relief. Eventually decided not to get a suit here as didn't think there was much point posting home a suit that I wasn't going to wear for a year also they cost about 100 euro as well which made me think. Decided to get a linen pair of trousers as something to wear, wasn't very happy with them though as I had to go back three times to get them fitted properly.
Went to a few bars in the evenings which was nice and chilled out, bumped into two Swedish guys that we met in Halong/ Hanoi and all in all had relaxed time which we needed after Hanoi and Hue.
Hoi An
Unfortunately the food was still disappointing as it has been throughout Vietnam, the quality of the food or the cooking has been poor at times to be honest and generally Lonely Planet recommended eating places are amongst the worst.As the title suggests there was a downside to Hoi An one that might put off the girls, that of vermin. Every night we were out we saw both rats and cockroaches in the streets running near us. What made it slightly worse was that the streets are dimly lit so you don't see these big things until they're on top of you. Over three nights we counted 9 rats or maybe it was just one that was following us and no that wasn't our stalker as I haven't got to that yet. Also they seem to be digging up the whole of Hoi An, the main street and most of the streets off it were dug up and sand and rubble was piled everywhere.
On our second day after picking out the clothes we wanted made the previous day, we headed for the beach. We rented some bikes and cycled 6 km to the beach on roads much quieter than Vientiane... The beach wasn't bad but nothing special and sun loungers were too expensive to rent. Still it was nice to finally get to a beach after three weeks, lie in the sun and splash about.
However as we were as we cycling back someone came up behind us at a traffic lights and said "Hello, do you remember me?" One look and there was our stalker from Hue on his motorbike beside us. "Yes" we both groaned in unison. Thankfully he had a passenger so set off in front of us after the lights had changed, I still made an attempt to follow directly behind him for a minute though to see how he felt about it. I should point out that Hoi An isn't exactly down the road from Hue it's four hours away!
Off to the Beach town of Nha Trang next
