Yeh... a little bit carried away with the old tailoring

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Well ok, start at the start... we were menat to go straight to Hoi An, but actually got booted off the bus in Hue, which is pretty much just over the former border into the South. The more pleasant South i might add. Anyway, the bus stopped, we were told to get off, had a fag, tried to get back on like eveyone else, and were told 'er no, bus full, you'll have to wait here till the next one this afternoon'. Bastards. I guess having a break after 16 hours or something ridiculous on the bus is a good thing, but when you want to go... anyway, it turned out to be pretty sweet as Hue is a very pretty town, and it was nice to spend a few hours being zoomed through it on motorbikes. We even did summat cultural...went to the Pagoda where that Monk lived who set fire to himself in protest? Its on the front of the Rage Against the Machine album 'Killing in the name"? Anyway, that was pretty cool... took loads of photos of things... inclusing one of a random asian girl, who appeared to just be wandering round the pagoda, asking people to take photos of her. Oddball... but that was all good, and finally we got back on the bus and headed of to Hoi An, where we'd heard rumours of tailoring services we would be simply unable to resist...

and my, were we ever weak! We were accosted by a tailor pretty much as soon as we arrived, and though we claimed we'd just go and check out there shop that evening, when they took us there, chatted away to us, gave us food and drinks, took us to dinner... yeh the orders were very much placed before the night was through! and to be frabnk, most of our time in Hoi An was spent in the tailors! a very cunning ruse as the more time spent, the more you talk yourself into things! Ok... well i got an excuse... i mean i;d have to buy all this stuff for sydney anyway eh? and at least this way i know it fits, and its cheaper.... yeh - lets admit what i bought:

a 3 piece suit
trousers
2 x shirts
jeans
cords
2 x dresses
an evening dress (Hmmm)
2 x shoes

God i really hope thats it! and of course a suit for my dear david... which we really hope will fit. anyway, its a dead snazzy blue pin stripe number. He will surely look dashing. and be able to get that new job he's promised he'll get for the last 4 and a half years (gotta put that spiteful dig in whereever i can my love, you understand! x) Anyway, so that was mostly that really! The tailors were lovely though... they all referred to each other as sister, brother, mother cousin... but it soon became apparent that they werren't in anyway related! there was even one who we still to this day can't decide if it was a man or a woman. But they taxied us around, alterted when we asked, fed and watered us, and we generally had a laugh with them! Realising the sheer weight of things we bought, and contemplation of the postal situation was niot quite so pleasant... but lets not dwell on that now. It was still a bargain! As long as i don't put a load of weight back on.; Hmmmm.

We did other things too of course... Hoi An is a beautiful little town, the centre of whic has UNESCO heritage status so is protected in its charm and beauty in the same way as Guanajaunto, which as most of you know is the place that stole my heart in mexico. So yeh, i liked it. We also had a little day trip to the MY Son ruins, to warm us up for Ankor Wat as it were... beautiful day, bit of a boat ride back down the ol' mekong (AGAIN), stopping in at some random carpentry village / island / place. Not entirely sure why... but we haggled down the trip price so were proud enough of ourselves that we'd have gone anywhere.

The other memory of Hoi An, though thats a bit of a contradiction in itself, was that we finally had a big night out! Hoorah! You know, i love a drink me, and one night i gt a bit of a sulk on about us never going out on a session. i mean, we'll never drink cheaper in our lives... unless the economy collapses and i start a small distillery of my own. Not the likliest scenario. So yeh, the next night, we went for it... abnd man were we wrecked. We chose the bar due to the free rum and coke from 10 - 11 policy, got that extended by chatting with the aussie barman, and then took full advantage of the drunk men like to buy girls drinks policy. I recall spending most of the night talking in spanish to an italian man. I've tried this sober a few times, and frankly, i've not been good, so christ know what i was banging on about then! Then i was speaking to someone, who i can assume was a dick as all i recall was calling him a fascist. He mayhave been welsh. then me and shell aren't quite sure what happened... but no fear, the aussie barman looked after us and we were home just after sunrise. Having misplaced the key temporarily i also had to wake up the hotel guy (they always sleep in the foyer during the night), and apologetically ask for a spare key. He gave me a ring of zabout hundred keys, presumably for every room in the hotel, and went back to bed. Later i sautered down to apologise, and he practially wet himself laughing. everybody's happy eh!

That was it! Oh yeh, the beach was gorgeous, but we were only there for a few hours. Mores the pity. We didn't think it would matter cos next stop was Mui ne, and we'd heard great things about the beach there. Oh, the disappointment....

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