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Published: November 23rd 2011
Hoi An - first fitting
Nope, not a professional male model, just JanAfter 3 days spent on a motorbike, we arrived to Hoi An, the trip's final destination. Mr Tai hurried back on the road as he had an Irish girl waiting to do a similar tour from Hoi An to Hue. We were left in the capable hands of Mr Hieu, who was supposed to do one more task that day – show us to the best tailor in town.
Hoi An is namely a location where everyone comes to to have custom made clothes done for a bargain. You can have everything you want made here, and I mean everything (from suits, to evening gowns, winter coats, dresses...you name it you got it). It felt like I was in retail heaven. Even Jan admitted that seeing all those clothes and having all those choices on every step tempted him to just shop, shop, shop...And this from a guy who HATES shopping 😊.
Anyway, we stopped at our tailor and we both had some clothes done, more or less with our thoughts on going back to work, well, someday anyway. Jan had a suit, winter coat and loads of shirts done (cost
him about $280) and I had a tailored pant suit and dress made for about $150. A bargain. Oh, and did I mention? Jan looked like a professional male model in his new clothes. Hands off girls, he's mine. 😊 They also keep your measurements so once at home you can always order some more clothes and they ship it to your home address once they are done. I was amazed how fast everything went as we had our first fitting scheduled for the next day already. 1 day! We had some minor things redone and it was ready to be shipped (there was no way we would be carrying all those clothes with us till the end of our trip).
It is fascinating how the town lives and breathes with the tailoring industry. Whether it's your hotel staff or people from your favourite restaurant, everyone knows someone who can saw you some darn incredible stuff. I am glad that the guys took us to our tailor as it would be really hard to pick a shop on our own.
The town is also used to hordes of tourists – hence numerous spas, restaurants...You can imagine how it
gets a bit annoying walking down the street having people literally bellowing at you, inviting you to their cafe, spa...It never stops, well they never stop 😊.
We thought we would not stay in Hoi An for long but after walking randomly around we discovered Hoi An's old town. Well, it's not like we “discovered” it, as it was as touristy as the rest of town, but it was beautiful and you could easily get lost in the atmosphere. We just kept returning there every day, and to be honest we were also waiting for our clothes to be finished, so that gave us a good excuse not to move to another location for the next couple of days. We also ran into Florian and Alex again (together with Charlie and Josh), who were making their way down south and all the way to Cambodia on their motorbikes. From their stories we were just glad that we did the exploring of Vietnam on the back of a motorbike with 2 very experienced drivers.
They recommended to us to rent bikes and head down to the local beach, which was 4km outside of town, which we eventually did, on
Hoi An - cyclos
pretty much only good for a sightseeing tour round the old town our last day. We had a night bus scheduled for that day so we had a whole day to waste and we thought “why not”. Only as soon as we sat on our bicycles it started to rain. We were stubborn though, but on our way to the beach we were forced to stop and look for shelter at least 4 times as it was pouring down. You can imagine we didn't go for a swim after arriving to the beach 😊. The wind was blowing violently, the waves were huge, it kept on raining, but it was still an amazing sight. We met another German guy at the beach, who walked there all the way from town. We were chatting and soon we said we would go back to town together and grab some food on our way there. As he was on foot and we had our bikes, Jan invited him to sit on the back of the bike to make our journey faster. This resulted in a puncture and a slightly crooked rear tyre. The locals came to our aid, bending the tyre back into its original form, well almost. A guy just put the bike on
Hoi An - at the tailor
"No, I am pretty sure it's 60cm not 80" :) the floor and re-shaped the tyre back in shape by standing and jumping on it. We
found a motorbike repair shop and they fixed the puncture for a dollar and left us with a warning “1 bike, 1 person!”. 😊
We had our hearts set on visiting a certain place that was recommended to us on our way back to town so we parted ways and we headed off towards
Dingo Delly, which was recommended to Jan as THE place where he could get all the cheese he can possibly eat. Namely, if there is one thing Jan has been missing and craving for like crazy during our trip, it's cheese 😊. So we arrived to the place, soaking wet from the rain, almost taken aback when we opened the door as the AC was full on, but we made it through and it was definitely worth it. We ordered a cheese and salami platter and not only were we given the chance to enjoy some proper cheese (all you could get out of Jan was “Briiiiie, njam, njam, njam” - his face was shining out of sheer happiness) but we also got brown bread, yes, that's what I
said, brown bread people. We also ordered the Aussie burger, with proper meat and nice and crispy bacon. OMG, how we gobbled the food. Full and happy we headed back to town, just after Jan brought two think slices of cheese to take with him on the night bus. Oh, and to add to the happy momentum: it stopped raining!!!
Our clothes were shipped, we pretty much saw all there was to see in Hoi An (which is an absolute lie, but do indulge me), so there was no reason to stay in Hoi An anymore. Off we were to Dalat.
Dalat A long night ride behind us, we stopped in Nha Trang at about 6am. And it was amazing: the beaches were already full of locals, doing their morning run, playing beach volley, going for a stroll...Seriously people...at 6am??? Really? Another bus later we finally arrived to Dalat. This was a destination I wasn't really sold on at first, but I am glad Jan insisted, as it turned out to be quite cool.
They say Dalat is the “bizarro Vietnam”, they also call it
Le Petit Paris. although apart from a huge telephone tower shaped
Hoi An
this is the day we fell in love with the town like the Eiffel Tower and some French colonial villas I am not really sure why. Compared to the rest of Vietnam the air is quite cool and the evening temperatures drop quite low, I was really, really cold and I sort of understood why the locals were wrapped into proper winter clothes.
Dalat is also known to be different from the other parts of Vietnam as you will not find any rice fields here, but they grow strawberries and flowers – hence the town is overflown with flower markets. The first day there we set on a walking tour – but as soon as we came halfway round the lake it started pouring down like crazy – so we had a 2 hour coffee break in a nice restaurant where there about 5 staff per guest, I kid you not. As soon as it stopped raining we went to see one of the flower parks the town is known for, but we weren't really impressed. Jan did get a chance to play around with his camera doing, I think that's what it's called, macro shots. We slowly walked back and I was getting weird looks from the locals as
I was wearing shorts and they all had their warmest winter clothes on. Ah well, at least I think that's what the weird stares were all about 😊.
The next day we rented a motorbike and were off in the search of the site where we could do ostrich riding. Yup, ostrich riding. We found the designated waterfall (which was nothing special and we didn't really care about) and were off to look for the ostrich. Half an hour later there they were. Man, were they big (100 kg each) and they didn't seem too friendly at all. As the locals were off fetching the ostrich for us, I was losing my courage. Jan went first and it looked like he was having fun/was slightly worried by the fact that him and the ostrich didn't quite click, but he seemed happy (Jan I mean) it was only one circle around the yard. Then it was my turn and boy it was weird and I was scared, I didn't seem to be able to turn the ostrich into my best friend either, but we did it. Walking away from the big birds Jan and I just kept repeating: “Weird, so,
so weird.” 😊 So let's see what the score is: riding a camel (check), riding an elephant (check), riding an ostrich (check). Jan promised that one of these day he would take me to ride an actual horse.
On our way back to town we stopped at another local waterfall, Datanla Waterfalls, but only because they had a cable-car (bob sled) ride through the park. To be honest that is all I remember about it, oh, and the waterfalls weren't that shabby either 😊. We were on our way back to town for our next site – Dalat's Crazy house, which we managed to find, eventually.
Hang Nga Crazy House, was, well crazy. Watch out Gaudi here comes Ms Dang Viet Nga. The house seems to defy all the laws of physics and it's like nothing you have ever seen before. It has 9 rooms, each with a different theme (bear room, kangaroo room, bees room and so on..) and you can spend hours running up and down the windy hallways, peeping through the wholes in the roof...It's awesome, just check the pics.
Last, but certainly not least, on our list was the Valley of loooooove (has
Hoi An
Jan's photos are getting more and more amazing to be pronounced with Barry White voice to fully appreciate the name). A park dedicated to, well, love. It was the tackiest, kitschiest, coolest place I have ever seen 😊. You should have seen all those heart shaped statues, benches with 2 people kissing, etc. It was awesome 😊.
Dalat also gave us the opportunity to meet up and hang out with some nice people – Kris and Kristina, who are now probably already back in Poland, and Jay and Danielle, from the UK (we are about to meet al of them for dinner just now).
So until next time...Peace and LOVE 😊.
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ganjar
non-member comment
AAAMAAAZIIING.......
so sad i was just 2 days in Vietnam, wanna go to Hoi An too...