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Published: August 6th 2010
We got a night bus arriving in Hoi An at 6.30am which was far from fun... we boarded the ‘sleeper bus’ excitedly 12 hours previously to be told that we were pretty much not allowed to sit anywhere we wanted to so I selected the back row which turned out to be the area pumped with hot air and stinking of urine which was pleasant. We had a French boy on the aisle next to Lucy, he got on with a girlfriend and friend and being the last three passengers they were all separated which made the girlfriend immediately burst into tears. This seemed slightly dramatic but she then preceded to throw tantrums the entire journey and made the boyfriend sit crouched at the foot of her bed so he could stroke her and feed her mentos which she rejected to my amusement. She was clearly jealous of her boyfriend being with us stunners in our Aladdin trousers and silk sleeping bag liners so we resembled caterpillars - hot! We watched some of our latest box set (brothers and sisters) and once the laptop died attempted to get some sleep which was a lot easier said than done as the bus
driver sped up and down winding mountain roads throwing us all over the place in the sweatiest narrow seats in the world. At one point I thought Lucy was having a laugh and trying to tickle me but it was just her elbow in my armpit - sexy! Lucy resorted to one eye mask placed over the eyes and another over her nose in attempt to block out the sewage smell. The French one was taking up so much room Lucy crept closer and closer to me so that when ‘sleeping’ my head was banging on the side of the bus for the cramped conditions. Anyway we made it in one piece with our luggage so all was fine.
Hoi An is famous for the 200 tailor shops who each day run 24 hour studios in order to satisfy travellers demand for made to measure clothes. Me being a keen shopaholic felt it necessary to partake and warned Lucy that I would be dragging her around the shops for hours. We treated ourselves to a nap and some horrible stale biscuits before heading into town in search of a suitable tailor worthy of our clothes order. Everyone is keen
to grab you and recommend their sister’s shop for clothes and promise you an array of discounts and treasures. We got shoehorned into a horrible shop with mannequins adorned in hideous garments fit only for markets back at home and then not winning us over she produced this photo album spilling at the seams of tourists with exceedingly bad taste in ball gowns, duffel coats and psycadelic printed maxi dresses so we made a swift exit. We found a shop which had some decent fabrics, laptops to show them what we wanted and actually had other customers so seemed like a winner. I whipped out a file I had prepared whilst ‘working in Melbourne’ containing printouts of all the things I wanted and started going through all the fabric options and cute lining fabrics. Lucy soon got into the spirit and placed a couple of orders too. We got ourselves a personal slave/’designer’ each and they start taking measurements between telling us how fat we are and grabbing our boobs and bums giggling to one another. One woman in the shop got asked if she was an elephant and if there was a baby in her tummy!
The next
morning we particularly ran down to the shop keen as mustard for our first fitting session after scouring the internet for the perfect coat for Lucy and printed out the pictures including every angle. We were placed in neighbouring fitting rooms to try their first efforts on I think I was wearing a jacket so not many fit problems to be faced with Lucy arms flapping repeatedly asking ‘what is this?! I look like a school marm!’ The foxy work dress she had in mind did not quite turn out according to plan and it was about this point our slaves started to regret taking us on as their latest project as it became clear they weren’t keen on all my ideas for alterations, finishes, alternative funky zips and how to achieve these things when their normal ‘we can not do’ did not wash with me. We started to enjoy spying on what other people were having made and while sitting around waiting we spotted this French boy in a puffa coat made of charcoal grey cool with a bright turquoise lining and detachable zip off hood. It was truly awful and we began giggling, his friends were all laughing
dinner with our rain macs
As we tucked into our dinner the heavens opened and the restaurant started to leak!as he had clearly been allowed off on his own for half an hour and ordered this monstrosity. When the friends spotted us everyone was laughing, they said he should get the hood puffed up and he reported the outcome ‘zey are going to take some of the puff out of the coat’. We witnessed a bright pink kimono dress, boys designing ‘funky’ suits and weird and wonderful ideas for black tie dresses.
We then paid a visit to a shoe ‘boutique’ to see about the option of getting shoes made and perhaps a handbag. I had my printouts at the ready with the bag I wanted and Lucy was keen for some knee high boots so she looked at their catalogues and selected a designer pair for them to copy. The shop goffer ‘measured’ Lucy’s feet and legs whilst making pen marks all over her legs whilst the boss arrived to start fighting with me over the price of my bag, she was furious that the girl had offered it so low but this is all part of the order process and I seemed to get quite a good deal. We returned for Lucy’s boot fitting to be
faced with a pair of boots which resembled something an elf would wear made by another elf. When she got out the picture of the boots they were supposedly copying the answer was ‘yes but we cannot do 100%, most customer are not so fussy’ this was true but our evaluation was that her boots were a 5% copy this being the face that they were boots but nothing relating design features or shape Lucy had hoped for.
Soon we were back having more fittings (we had a total of 8 visits), I think our slaves had come up with a plan to keep me out of the studio saying that one of my fabrics had run out so I would have to stay downstairs selecting another fabric while they were going to rush Lucy through all her garments before I would get chance to interfere and brief them on new alterations. I walked upstairs to find her in a winter coat boiling hot, red in the face shouting ‘It’s all wrong! Fliss explain to them how to get it right!’. I explained how it was not as we had ordered so they set about pinning things into place,
My Son
Fliss playing in the jeep the slave then stabbed Lucy’s wrist ‘accidently’ with a pin! Lucy kept claiming she attacked her, even the next day the pin prick was glowing. It was sweltering and trying on winter coats was not a nice experience, I even resorted to taking a hoodie along to put under the coat as they didn’t understand that in England it is cold and necessary to have a jumper under your coat so coat plus hoodie was not fun. As we made the two daily trips we began to see improvements and eventually some things going into plastic bags under the ‘finished garments table’ which is exciting but spending two to three hours there at once is draining. After four days everything was finally complete and we lugged our new treats down to the post office to ship them home we were told three to four months so it will be like some Christmas presents when they finally do arrive home.
Whilst in Hoi An we tried to fit in some of the more cultural activities and booked ourselves onto a trip to Me Son (pronounced Mui Son) it is the ruins of a selection of Hindu temples which were built
If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy........
we find fun anywhere - even amongst ancient ruins!! by the Cham empire and are a part of a Unesco World Heritage site. We were given the chance to drive into the grounds in an American jeep so I jumped to the front and volunteered us so everyone else was squashed into a stinky minibus (ha ha). It was such a hot day and we wandered around trying to avoid all the groups of Chinese and Japanese tourists (in particular a group who bought along with them a loud speaker - what does possess them?!). I spotted a broken statue with the head missing a good place for a photo and after they spotted my genius idea we were attacked by a crowd of about twenty Chinese who shoved in to all capture the moment as well. The guide was keen to let us know that these temples were built before Ankor Wat but they do not really compare to the incredible structures we had seen in Cambodia. We had an interesting day out and as soon as we arrived back we were straight back into Kimmys tailors to check up on the progress!
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