Hoi An is a speck of a town in the middle of the South China Sea coast of Vietnam. It has its charms, mainly in Old Town where the colonial buildings and waterway cut through the centre, but the big attraction is the plethora of tailor shops! Literally every street has ten or more custom made clothing stores, where you can pick from ready to wear designs on the mannequins, from endless catalogues or from photos from home. The hundreds of staff will alternately bargain or bamboozle you into buying an entire new wardrobe, all ready within 24-48 hours of having your measurements taken.
We had no intention of shopping here. And yet, we seem to be leaving with 5 new pairs of custom made shoes, an evening dress and linen pants. Imagine if we were looking to buy stuff! We actually didn't get around to seeing some of the sites of the area, like the Cham ruins of My Son or the nearby beach, because we had so many fittings to attend for our purchases. We consoled ourselves for missing these cultural experiences with beer o'clock in the hostel pool in the afternoons.
It turned out to be key to enjoy Hoi An by lounging the hostels' pools by day when the sun drives the temperatures into the 40s and save your perusing of the clothes stores and art galleries for the evening when Le Loi and several other major roads are closed off to traffic and become pedestrian shopping malls ("walking street"). The temperatures are cooler, the touts are less pushy and the town is prettier illuminated with Chinese lanterns.
One further observation: as we've spent more time here, we've noticed a marked decrease in sensitivity to personal space. Eg: when I was signing the check-in forms, the reception desk lady grabbed my hand and played with my fingers. "Like baby fingers!" she remarked, "very soft". I think what she meant was "still have baby chub". And while finishing a meal in a restaurant, the waitress grabbed Mehr's tummy to check if she had any room left for more food, which startled us so quickly that we didn't even have time to complain or be alarmed before it was over. And the shoemaker poked my nose more than a few times to illustrate that it's pointy. Right...
The silver lining is that they also understand our sense of humour a bit better. For instance, Mehr and I would point out various ugly prints/colours/paintings and suggest to each other we buy them for friends at home, sort of in a out-tacky-ing competition (example: "Hey Mehr, I think your parents would really like that chubby-faced Mona Lisa ripoff" "Hey Holly, you've always wanted to buy a turquoise and pink sequined leotard.", etc.). In Thailand, they would overhear this and then try to sell us many similarly tacky things thinking they were to our taste. Here, the sales people point to other tacky items, then wink and laugh hysterically because they've caught the joke. Irony is not lost on the Vietnamese.
Smile of the Day:
Older gentleman compliments tiramisu to bakery attendant. She says "Yes, I really like it too." He responds with puzzlement and vague surprise "Oh, you eat?"
And Best pick up line award goes to:
Boy holds shirt out to girl. "Feel this," he says. She does. "Does that feel like boyfriend material?"
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