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CAUTION: some of the following blog contents are decidedly girly
We finished off the Hue area with an excellent boat ride down the Perfume River (saw the fantastic tomb of Minh Mang and breathtaking Thien Mu Pagoda and monastery) before moving on to our latest stop, Hoi An, a few hours away still in the central part of Vietnam. We came here primarily to see My Son (mee-sun), the ruins of several temples built between the 4th and 13th centuries and to check out Hoi An’s Old Quarter, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Both were amazing - My Son is surrounded by trees (yay, shade) and has a hint of the architecture we might see at Angkor Wat. The Hoi An Old Quarter is almost all shops and a big central market with loads of historical buildings hidden throughout. BUT, Hoi An is also famous for it’s custom made clothing, silk and shoes and I fully intended on having something made (well, c’mon, it must be done - it would be like going to France and not trying the wine or Walt Disney World and not riding Splash Mountain - and really - who would not ride Splash Mountain?).
We arrived in the early evening and, knowing we had just two days to get an item made and fine-tuned, we headed out to start roaming the streets of the Old Quarter and made it a good, what, twenty feet from the front of our hotel before we’d each spent in the millions (in dong, my friends, but it’s still cool to have that much cash on you). We stopped in to the dressmaker just across the street to “look” and “looking” ended with us buying (between the two of us) two tank tops, three pairs of capris (vacation pants as my peeps know I likes to call ‘em), two dresses, one skirt, two pants and two tops. There goes that
maybe one item I’d get myself. All this on pure faith since we just picked the fabric we liked and the style from either a picture, a sample on the floor or to copy of something we brought in (with their promise that, yes, yes, they’d make it the “same, same”).
Zip, zip, zip they take your measurements and explain what changes they think will best suit you and next thing you know it’s an hour later and
you’re standing on the sidewalk wondering how in creation
any of that is going to get made by the
next day. (It’s either fairy magic or they’ve learned to control the space/time continuum). But when we went back the next afternoon, sure enough, the first pieces were ready (and looking great) and the others kept frenetically arriving via different seamstresses on motorbikes while we were fitting the first round. A few minor alterations needed and off the items went back out to be adjusted for another fitting later on. So what do you do when everything is looking good? You betcha, you order another dress.
Each.
….and then walk down the street and order a pair of custom sandals (ready for the next day, I might add).
I kid you not.
With a total of three fittings everything was completed well before we had to leave at 11:30 a.m. on our last day in town (Saigon bound). Phew. I may officially be shopped out. At the very least I’m tired of having a sea of dressmakers mark me up with chalk. But it was great fun and, damn, we’re lookin’ good.
In other clothing related
bliss - we’re all light-headed from the sheer joy of easily accessible laundry services in Vietnam. In China they were hard to find and we ended up doing our own laundry (which is never good since it takes valuable time away from general roaming about and activities of a shananigous nature), so you can appreciate our utter elation when just outside our charming hotel was an excellent laundry service that returned a stack of gloriously clean and fresh smelling socks and T-shirts in less than a day. Happy, happy, joy, joy.
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E-Dog
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Wowsers|!!
This is a great moment in the life of my sister... she has NEVER bought this much clothing at a time... I bet ya she liked getting fitted instead of trying on all this stuff! lol All is beautiful... Keep it up guys!! Can't wait to see Angkor Wat!! Hope you'll take some Lara Croft tomb raider-ish pics!! I want awesome pictures in there!!