Advertisement
Published: June 25th 2011
Edit Blog Post
On Wednesday night, we ate in a seafood restaurant in Nha Trang but both me and Terry just ate fried rice. We had to catch an overnight train to Da Nang which was supposed to leave Nha Trang at 22:10. In typical Vietnamese style, it arrived at 23:00 and for some completely unknown reason, didn’t leave Nha Trang till 00:45. Vietnam is huge and Da Nang is 12 hours away so instead of arriving in the morning, we actually arrived at 2pm. Despite feeling like we’d just spent half our lives on a train, we slept well because the mattresses were thicker and although we didn’t have a mouse, we did have a baby cockroach.
Da Nang is the fourth largest city in Vietnam but we were driving right through it and onwards to Hoi An, a smaller town with lots of history. In only took about 45mins to get there. On the way, we noticed that for about 5KM solid, the whole seafront in Da Nang was being developed. There were loads of 5 star resorts and high quality villa developments the whole way along and it did make me wonder who they’re aimed at. It’s not like Brits
holiday in Vietnam (even though they should because compared to Spain it’s cheaper, better and far more interesting). After our time in HCMC we’re pretty sure the Americans don’t holiday here either.
Maybe it’s just really cheap as our hotel we’re staying in at Hoi An is amazing. It has a great pool, huge rooms, LCD TV’s, hairdryer (straight hair for me today I think) and a bath. Hoi An is like a quaint little town which has all kinds of UNESCO heritage statuses. They charge about $5 to enter the old town if you come in as part of a group so all 15 of us walked into the town as stealthily as we could, pretending we didn’t know each other. Me and Terry successfully got in for free but a few others had to pay. Hoi An is famous for tailor shops, and there are about 400 in this small town. 2 hours later and Terry has ordered a custom shirt. I ordered two pairs of custom trainers which I’m told to come back to collect at 5pm the next day. They can make anything for you within 24 hours and I got to pick everything from
the colours to the materials to the fact that my name is being embroidered on my trainers. I did treat myself to the finest leathers and spent about £75 for two pairs of tailored trainers, not bad! They can make trainers for as little as $25, but the quality is poor.
We walked back to the hotel and most of our group got in the pool and Jacuzzi. Everyone was in the mood to celebrate a bit because of various people getting results and the fact that we had nothing planned in the morning. Ideas varied but eventually we decided to eat in town then return to the hotel to have a pool party. We found an Italian restaurant which was above a rock pub (I think it was called before and now) and had pizza. From walking around, we saw that there were loads of tourists and that the prices reflected this. We’re so used to paying about 60,000VND (which is £2) for dinner now so a treat is a dinner which costs 100,000VND(£3.15). In Hoi An, we saw food for 150,000VND and quickly left the restaurant but really, that’s only about £4.70 which would just about get
you a starter in Nando’s at home. Needless to say, pizza was a bit of a treat and our budget is getting a bit tight so we’re now having pot noodles for lunch so we can eat a nice dinner. While we were in Hoi An at night, we saw all the lovely lanterns along the river. This is where the guys in the Top Gear Vietnam special have their clothes made (Terry’s shirt comes from the exact same shop) and enjoy the river with the lanterns. What a beautiful town.
Our pool party master plan was foiled by the hotel staff who (wisely) said no so we just played drinking games in a room instead, fuelled by cheap Vietnamese rum leftover from our free bar on the beach in Nha Trang.
The following morning, I was incredibly lazy and stayed in bed all morning (I did get up for buffet breakfast of course) while Terry went to town to have his new shirt adjusted. I finally had some time to work out how to unblock Facebook and managed to do so after trying loads of different methods. The government are pretty on top of squashing new efforts!
In the afternoon, most of us went to town to pick up our tailored items. Loads of people had stuff made so we all saw each other’s purchases. I got my hi-tops and other trainers which look awesome and Terry got his shirt which was actually the wrong shirt but they gave him money off instead and he kept it. It’s still very nice and tailored perfectly. We both want to go back to Hoi An and just spend loads of money on tailored clothes! This morning we left early for a 4 hour bus ride to Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam but I’ll fill you in on a separate entry.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.033s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0137s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb