Advertisement
Published: June 20th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Marble Mountain
pointless stop off on bus trip After Hue we do a bit of a back track down the coast to Hoi an. I am within 4hrs of this place and I believe any girl will do what she can to get there when she realises how close she has become to shopping heaven. The two english girsl we met in Nha Trang reminded me, this is where there are over 400 tailors and you can get anything made to measure. It is also on the beach and there are various temples in the town so while your clothes are being made there is plenty to see and do.
The bus journey seems longer than 4hrs as the tourist trail is deadly and we are taken to various 'cultural stops'. When we arrive we have an idea of where we are going to stay but we are not actually sure where the bus has dropped us off. We end up taking two taxi bikes, one of the taxi bike riders asked Shenton the name of the hotel we wanted to go to so he says the name which if you say this out loud you can hear what the taxi man heard 'We want the Phouc an
Moto taxi ....
can you really fit all our bags on a motorbike? Yes you can. hotel please' he smiles and says 'for Phouc an sure' so with ourselves and all our luggage we head to the hotel that we looked at on the internet. This is very intetersting to say the least and thankfully the trip is very short and there isn't much traffic on the roads.
The first day we head out to check out the tailors and they are literally everywhere. Very spoilt for choice, the first place we look at is recommened by the hotel (it is part of their chain) I make the mistake of looking through the catelouges before looking for material and after they have quoted some prices I realise they dont have any material. After my first tailoring experience I realise I just need to look for material first. I then find a shop which has some dresses and a skirt that I like and before I know it I have been measured up and will have my first fitting tomorrow morning.
We spend the afternoon looking around the markets and buy some silk dressing gowns and scarfs and braclets, we buy so much that I think we will need a new bag. The town is
really pretty and very different to other places we have visited in Vietnam. The buildings have a very colonial feel and we both like the relaxed feel of it here. The town is very small and it doesn't take long to be comfortable with where everything is. Down by the river there are numerous places to eat and we have a lovely meal overlooking the river near a street that is full of stalls selling laterns, all alight and glowing with vibrant colours.
The next day we hire a motobike and head off to the beach beautiful and tranquill, we have the most fantasitc sea food at a restaurant right on the beach, so good that we end up going back again the next day for some gaint prawns which are really delicious and taste better than lobster.A tthe beach there are women trying to sell things to us, one old lady just stands at the end of our table while we are waiting for food smiling at us. We say we dont want anything but she seems just happy looking at us, not even asking us to buy anything. In the end we feel we have to buy
something from her and buy some chopsticks that we dont really need. An impressive impasive sales technique lesson that we may be glad of ?
I have a couple of fittings for the clothes I have ordered and they are all perfect. Though as I am doing this Shenton finds himself in a middle of a 'catfight'. An american girl has run out of a shop with her suit refusing to pay the remainder of the price she has agreed. A vietnamese women has chased her and caught her and it has turned into a full on fight, over this suit. Shenton pulls them apart takes the suit and trys to find out what has happened. He gets the American girl to pay most of the remainder of what she owes and then she disappears sharpish with the suit leaving Shenton now surrounded by 30 odd local people, who are not very happy and believe he is with this girl, the vietnamese woman has scratches and bruises from the fight. They start grabbing at Shenton but he smiles alot and trys to tell them he was only trying to help and of course he isn't with this American girl.
It seems they realise this to be true and then there are smiles all round, but there is one grandmother who wants to fight and squares up to him with her fists raised, this causes a lot of laughter, then he has various people trying to tickle him, all very surreal. He was only trying to go for a massage. Still he is lucky because the granny would have made mince meat out of him. Hoi An is definetly a great place to visit and for girls and boys who like clothes it is even better....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.037s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.017s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb