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Published: April 18th 2009
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Measured Up!
Andy being measured up for some zip walking trousers! Despite the relentless tropical rain storms that hung over the central coast of Vietnam for the week we travelled through it, we found that if you're going to be 'rained in' anywhere in Vietnam then Hoi An is the best place to be....
...basically from the moment we arrived to the moment we left, the beautiful people of Hoi An made every possible effort to make us feel welcome and at home in their home town. We had originally booked ourselves in at the local backpackers youth hostel but owing to a slight administration error we were allocated the wrong room and being New Years eve there was no other space. A simple 3 star hotel called "Nhi Nhi" came to the rescue offering us a double room for a very reasonable price and considering it was New Years eve we accepted immediately - they even came across the little town on mopeds to pick us up in the pouring rain - truly amazing service! We thought the Nhi Nhi hotel was Vietnam's answer to 'Faulty Towers', as during our stay there were so many hiccups that it became really funny. It actually made the whole stay so much more
Claire's Turn....
.... for a measure up. enjoyable and certainly a memorable one. The staff were so very friendly and tried so hard to make us happy that you simply couldn't get annoyed or frustrated - it was so great!
The first night after we came back from our New Years eve party we found that our bed was completely soaked through and the floor flooded as the ceiling had several leaks in it!... we explained the situation to the hotel and they quickly despatched a house cleaner who promptly changed the bed linen and covers for new dry ones.... of course there were two issues with this... firstly the mattress was soaking wet already so after just a couple of minutes the new linen was wet too and secondly the rain was still running from the ceiling onto the bed. It was so funny, we explained these fairly obvious points to the house cleaner who was looking very confused as she had followed her orders out from reception, so now it was time for the manager to come and have a look. Initially because of the new bed linen and the puddle on the floor had been mopped up by the cleaner things didn't look
Kid in a caddy store....
...Claire excited to choose from the vast fabric range. so bad to the manager but after some universal charades the situation became clearer. We were offered a choice of two other rooms; the first had a leaky roof too so we skipped that and settled for the second one. This room was dry and remained so for the duration of our time in Hoi An so that was good news. Minor issues like no hot water and heating were slowly sorted and Andy used folded paper to stop the loose window panes from rattling in wind throughout the night.
We gave our clothes to be washed by the hotel as we had no way of drying them out due to the poor weather. Unfortunately when we received the washing back it was still wet.... so we asked "shouldn't these be dry?".... "ah yes sorry but our drier machine is broken" came the response... so they took our washing back and hung them in the kitchens in hope that the heat from the cookers would do the job - simply hilarious... we both laughed at the situation and waited another couple of days before the clothes finally returned - almost dry.
As Hoi An is regarded as one
Market Ladies
Really fresh food for sale.... yum! of the best places in Asia to get your clothes made, we decided to take the opportunity to treat ourselves. Claire ended up having a new coat, 2 dresses and 1 top made, whilst Andy had a pair of backpacking trousers made. We were measured up and within 24 hours had our first of several fittings to ensure everything fitted just right. This reminded Claire of the magical times when she had her wedding dress made.
The tailors and their team work all through the night to get peoples orders ready for the next day. In some cases they even make the items in only 4 hours - same day!! As well as hundreds of tailor shops, Hoi An boasts many other shopping delights such as tailor made shoes, amazing handmade lanterns, wood craft, metal craft and lots of gift type shops - it is truely a shoppers paradise!
Whilst in Hoi An, the main river overflowed. This included the bridges, but this didn't stop anyone from making a living. People, moto's and food were all taken across the river by boat. Narrow planks of wood were used to get the vehicles precariously on and off the boat.
Washer Woman
Happy teenager washing her clothes in the restaurant kitchen. It was amazing to see the moto's drive down the planks loaded up with baskets full of bananas and crates of eggs. We took the opportunity here to try the traditional cuisine dishes of White rose dumplings and Cao lầu. It was so delicious that we had the same again a couple of days afterwards!
Unfortunately owing to the bad weather we were unable to see the natural attractions in the surrounding areas but used the time instead to recharge our human batteries which was just what we really needed. We also made the decision to skip Nha Trang as the weather was still bad and we were starting to run a little behind after staying in Hoi An five days instead of three. So we sorted a flight from nearby Da Nang to our next stop - Ho Chi Min City (originally Saigon).
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