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Published: August 11th 2008
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Day 60 Hoi An The Tailor Town
We arrived after a long overnight trip at 6:30am. Unfortunately forced to wait for our room to be vacated and cleaned we amused ourselves on the internet searching for ideas to take to the tailors. After a big buffet breaky we hired bikes and headed into town. With a list of things we needed we set out to find the perfect tailor. Happy with my clothes from my last trip we went back to Mekong and quickly got measured up for work pants and Jackets, to Phuong Nga for a LBD (Little black dress) and looked at a mass of others. Its impossible to go walk 10m without being swapped by ladies requesting you to “come look in my shop miss….” . With Jez’s shopping willpower diminishing we set off in search of a restaurant with a TV to catch the last half of the Colloingwood v’s Demons game, after a promising start the Dee’s just couldn’t hang on, so it was back into town for some more shopping. We eventually called it quits for the day and had a swim in our motel pool before meeting the others out for dinner and
exchanging stories of who had bought what and where and for how much!
Day 61
After a long wait for our laundry ( we were really down to the end of our backpacks) we set off for our fittings… Carly’s jacket… too tight, Jez work pants… too tight, Carly’s LBD perfect but…. not lined as arranged, Carly’s shoes too big, Jez shoes wrong colour.. Jez’s patience… 0! In desperate need of revival, we went to Blue Dragon Restaurant for an amazing lunch of spring rolls, lemon grass and chilli duck and squid! Revived but in desperate need of a break from the tailors we rode to the beach, unfortunately extremely windy but a gorgeous ride along the river just the same and we enjoyed a lovely swim. Back for more fittings; Jez jacket…. wrong in everyway?!, Carly’s 2nd jacket spot on! More comfort food required to get through Jez’s clothes disasters.. fortunately for Jez they sell snickers everywhere!! That evening we met up with the others for some fantastic Indian and plenty of other disaster clothes stories and some drinks at Same Same not different bar over a game of soccer!
Day 62
Keen to get away from
the tailors for a day we had breaky and headed to My Son to see the famous Cham Towers. Built in the 14th century we strolled around the five groups of towers in varying states of ruin in absolute awe despite the 40 degree heat and distinct lack of shade. We headed back to Hoian aboard the tour boat with lunch of vege and tofu served onboard and got some great pics from the roof top. We endured the usual stops at the village selling wooden crafts and paintings before heading for some last necessities at the tailors like tops and shirts before we were due to leave the next day. We met with the others for dinner as usual and headed in for an early night.
Day 63
Up early keen to sort out everything with plenty of time for our bus, which was a great idea in theory however the power had been cut the night before hence none of our clothes requiring final alterations were ready! (Should have learnt from last time not to leave things to the day you are leaving). We bought a few final souveniers and decided to send them home (hopefully they’ll
arrive sometime soon) after great debate with the lady from the post office that I must sign to say the post take no responsibility for the condition in which the goods arrive despite my box full of packing. We picked up all our clothes bar one top that was nothing like I planned and grabbed a quick bite to eat before boarding the bus to Hue. We arrived, checked into the Tran Ly Motel and wandered down to the river, where we had dinner aboard the Floating Restaurant. We met up with John and Tom to finally get rid of the couple hundred bucks of Lao kip we’d been unable to get rid of over a couple drinks at the DMZ cafe.
Day 64 Hue- City Tour
We headed to the Mandarin café for breaky and catch up on some internet stuff . Then booked a personal moto tour of the city. First stop was the Citadel including the tallest flag pole, nine cannons , nine dynastic urns, imperial enclosure and purple forbidden city (only it wasn’t purple!!). Then onto the Thein Mu Pagoda overlooking the river. Next stop was the Tu Duc Tomb a former Vietnamese emperor encompassing
the tallest tablet in Vietnam and oddly Tu Duc wrote his own scripture and ensured all his soldiers statues were shorter then himself (even shorter than Carly), Khai Dinh Tomb, Tomb Minh Mang starkly different from the others lush gardens, lakes and huge grounds was the small concrete and cold castle like tomb.
We stopped briefly at the conical hat making and incense stall, picking up some incense cones for our smoking Buddha (not sure if either will make it home though). After lunch we headed down to the river for a game of badmitton, all was going well until some local kids took over, after half hour of fighting to get out stuff back we made a break for it back to our motel! We set out for dinner, with recommendation of small restaurant closeby only to find out it was a set menu, and no-one spoke English, not wanting to stumble across some deathly nuts, (after such a good run) we snuck away and we found a cute little French restaurant and enjoyed some wine, beef and chicken. Then it was back to the motel early to pack up our backpacks in preparation for our early start on
the Demilitarised Zone ( DMZ) Tour.
Day 65- DMZ Tour
Up and waiting out the front of our motel at 6am for our pick up after waking the hotel staff sleeping in the foyer. We grabbed a couple bagettes from salesmen on bikes and waited for over a hour for our pick up.
After a couple hours on the bus we had a short stop for breaky at Dong Ha, back on the bus for another couple hours, we had a brief stop at the “Rock Pile” previous military base, then to Khe Sanh combat museum, which was made up of a couple of old planes, a tank and some uniforms. We passed the famous Ben Hai river and stopped at the start of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and highway No 9. After lunch we stopped at the Vinh Moc Tunnels which were a massive tunnel system the locals lived in during the war, as opposed to the Cu Chi Tunnels which were used for fighting, fortunately they were larger and much easier to negotiate however still wouldn’t be keen on living down there! We were dropped back to Dong Ha to await our overnight bus instead of
travelling to Hue and back again. We caught up on some blogs and organised with Martha and Karl to join them on the Halong Bay cruise the following morning. We grabbed a quick dinner and waited out the front of the restaurant from 7pm waiting for our pickup…. When it finally did arrive the drivers decided to have dinner and drinks, and wouldn’t let us put our luggage on til after. Then they refused to help us find our beds, all of which appeared to be occupied. We finally established we were to share the back row with two elderly ladies and there granddaughter who definitely weren’t keen to share there space or the extra pillows and blankets they had scored! After another two stops for food and petrol, no sleep, we finally arrived at 8.30am, 2 and half hours past our planned arrival, hence we’d missed our bus to Halong with Karl and Martha. And we were fuming!!
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Michelle
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So this summer I was in Vietnam and was also lucky enough to find Phuong Nga. I love some of the dresses they made for me...so much so that I'd like to order more. I have their card, but the email address doesn't seem to work. Any idea how to get in touch with them?