Hoi An - Nov. 21, 2010

 Thursday Nov 18, 2010 – Sun Nov. 21

Senne's Summary: We travelled by plane (and then taxi… you actually fly into Danang) to Hoi An, bought more custom-made clothes than we planned to, had a few massages and enjoyed walking around Hoi An. Happy birthday Mom!

We flew into Danang and then took about a half hour cab ride to Hoi An. We were very pleased to see that it was a lot less busy and crowded than Hanoi. We are definitely "small city" people. We like to have access to stuff… but not with 2000 scooters trying to run us over at any given moment!

We were warned that Hoi An had just had a storm, but saw little evidence of it. When we checked into our hotel the girl at the desk told us that just the day before the water had been in the lobby of the hotel. There are at least 3 steps up to the lobby, so it was at least knee deep on our street and we seem to be on higher ground than most of the town. I have to give them credit they just carried on like nothing had happened. We wouldn’t have known about it if people didn’t tell us about it! Later our tailor told us that she had to move all the fabric up higher in the shop because the water came in… like it was no big deal… I was left wondering how often it happens.

Speaking of our super wonderful lovely tailor… We went to this particular tailor because she was highly recommended to us by our friend that was in Vietnam last year…Thanks Skye 😀.  I’m glad we were able to get the information from her because the tailor was really great. Her shop is called NuNi. Her name is Ni and her sister’s name is Nu. It’s basically a shop space with lots of fabric, some sample clothes and a table in the middle where you can look at magazines and talk about what you would like.

Me and Ni!

On the first day we just got a few things so we could check out the quality of the clothes and see if we liked them. Steve got measured for an English Cashmere suit (with a vest), a pair of linen pants and a dress shirt. I had a hard time selecting what I wanted, but eventually came up with a design for a dress after looking at quite a few catalogues. We came back the next day for our first fitting.  We found it amazing that they could produce finished products in less than 24hrs. This is true, no matter how much you order…it’s always ready the next day.  These amazing girls must measure, cut and stitch, all through the night. It was very exciting to try on our new clothes and then have Ni talk about how she would change things. She knew exactly what changes needed to be made to get the perfect fit. We were so pleased with her work that we went a little crazy and ordered quite a bit more stuff. We’ve never had custom made clothes before so it was a bit of a novelty! We were very excited to have all these new clothes… and a little bit sad that we wouldn’t see them for nine more months because we are shipping them home…

Side note: The shipping was super easy. A lady from the post office came (on her scooter of course) to the tailor’s with a box and we did all the paperwork right at the tailors. Then she took the box back to the post office with her. We didn’t even need to step foot inside the post office!

Thought I’d include some random thoughts about Hoi An.

Random thought #1: I don’t know if some of you know but I’m always harassing Steve because he likes to whistle or sing one part of certain songs over and over… like a broken record… then that song gets stuck in my head. One of the classic lines he has been whistling for years is the song from, “Once Upon A Time in China”. Imagine my distress when I heard the song being played out in the street one day (and then over and over again!)… I just knew Steve was going to be whistling that darn song over and over. Steve figured it must be an ice cream truck or something (he who loves ice cream 😀) but, the part that struck me as funny, is that the song was being played by the garbage truck. I guess that’s how they warn people that the garbage truck is getting close and they should bring their garbage out???

Random thought #2: We were sitting in a restaurant enjoying our lunch one afternoon, when I was suddenly startled, by a scooter. Nope… not on the street… the scooter drove right up on the sidewalk and through the restaurant. Apparently staff parking is in the back of the restaurant!

Random thought #3: Often we would buy drinks and snacks for our room from the little carts out on the street. One night we stopped and asked for a few standards (Oreos and Pringles… seriously… those are the only recognizable snacks) and a couple of sodas. When we said soda, the guy looked at us funny. I said “Sprite” to be more specific. The guy said, “Wait here.” We said okay thinking that he was going inside the hotel behind him to get some out of the fridge. Nope, he got on his scooter and drove off somewhere to get our sodas!!! This is a man who wants the sale! Unfortunately when he returned he had soda water, which we hate. But really it was my fault for saying soda so we just bought them anyway… then Steve snuck off to another cart in the other direction and bought some sprite 😀

Random thought #4: Just as a side note… we loved our hotel the Vinh Hung 2. I’m writing this note so I remember when we return to Hoi An where we should stay! We had room 305 which seemed to be bigger than the others, and would like this room again! Breakfast buffet here was also awesome and even had an omelette station!

Random thought #5: The ladies here seem to be quite fond of Steve (well really ladies everywhere are fond of Steve… why wouldn’t they be?!?) In one store I was getting the third degree from one of the sales clerks (they really like to ask questions). We moved on from the standard, “Where you from?” … “Oh Canada, Toronto or Vancouver?” (We usually just say Vancouver to make it easier)… she took it a little further and wanted to know our ages, about my family, how long we’d been married, etc. The funniest part at the end was when I told her we’d been married for 20 years and she said (while smiling at Steve), “Oh 20 years… he VERY handsome man… you must be VERY happy!” Why yes thank you, I am. 😀

On our last morning, we were awakened at 4:30 AM by some music and gongs in the distance. We weren’t really sure what was going on, as we didn’t notice it on any other days. The music seemed to start up periodically as we slept and then stop for a bit. Then at about 7:00 AM we could hear the music getting closer to us. We thought it might be a parade (there is some sort of Miss Earth pageant thing happening here this week), but as it got closer we realized it was a funeral procession. The procession stopped right outside our hotel and loaded the coffin and the family into a vehicle. I’m not sure what happens next. Steve thinks they will go to a cremation, but I can’t imagine them burning that very beautiful and expensive looking coffin!

Watching the funeral procession from our hotel room.

Other than this we just spent our four days in Hoi An wandering the streets, doing a little shopping and going to the spa. I’ve turned Steve into a bit of a spa junkie! It is hard to resist when the prices are so good!

I did have plans to do other thing while we were in Hoi An, but we didn’t get to any of them… that’s okay… we’re definitely coming back in the future to get more clothes tailored… and we can do those other things then!