Hoi An: The dirty village with tailors in it
In which our sweating, blistered travellers have some clothes made and get accosted by kiddies
Waking up at 3:45am to be ready for our 6:30am flight. I gingerly lowered our 32Kg suitcase down the multitudinous flights of stairs to be greeted by hotel employees sleeping in the lobby in beds comprised of restaurant chairs pushed together. Quite a sobering sight, and made me feel like a bit of a shit for bitching to Rach about the hardness of our beds. Saigon’s final touch was to have the Taxi driver rip us off at the airport. An extremely obvious move in hindsight, but we were just too groggy to argue. After this excitement, the hour in Saigon airport and flight to Da Nang was uneventful, as was our ride from Da Nang (International? ok, if you insist.) Airport to our hotel - the Van Loi - in Hoi An.
Hoi An is famed for its tailors and cobblers. These skilled artisans aren’t just going to rely on reputation to get them work though, accosting anyone passing by their shops with “You! Buy something!”. At first glance there seemed to be plenty of cool clothes and shoes available, but after wandering around the town we realised that they’ve all stolen exactly the same designs, including colour schemes.
We eventually located the tailor “Nguyen’s” recommended by Coxy and Cath, and set about picking out some suits for Rach, and for me, as it turned out. Suits and plenty of copies of my Dogstar pants (sorry Masayo, if you had boy stuff in your shops I wouldn’t have to resort to commissioning cheap knockoffs). After 3 fittings we ended up with a huge mound of fantastic clothing. Rach is especially delighted as it’s impossible to find clothing for her body shape in Australian retailers. We also ended up in “Happy Shoes”, being badgered into custom shoe purchases by two very cute proprietresses.
Aside from the clothes, Hoi An isn’t the most thrilling place to visit. 3 days is more than enough to get sick of being attacked by shop owners and little kids forced to hoik the same gear to people in restaurants (for reference, they are offering carved whistles, tiger balm, necklaces, bracelets and postcards). So we’re happy to be jumping on the plane for Hanoi in about 5 minutes.