Fun in the sun in Hoi An

Hoi An is on the Vietnamese coast about halfway down. It is simultaneously a relaxing town full of backpackers here to party (we extended our stay for no reason other than continued beach-bumming), AND an enterprising city where the day becomes filled with appointments! This is the custom tailoring capital of Vietnam and scheduling repeat fittings to get your clothes perfect is a must. I guess it's a good thing we are on a strict fittings schedule because it's the only reason we leave the beach, where we are probably getting sunburnt.

Hoi An has really been fantastic. The town is small, but as we found out from our expat tour guide yesterday, growing FAST. In a year and a half, the bars on the riverfront have quadrupled. All the food and drinks are dirt cheap here, probably half of what they were in Hanoi, so the overflow of new businesses is definitely helping the tourists, I guess until tourism catches up to the supply. In the meantime, we are definitely in the majority of people who decide the few days they budgeted for Hoi An are NOT enough.

After the cruise, we were scheduled on a mini-bus transport from HaLong City back to Hanoi. All of our travel so far has gone swimmingly, with no delays, missed connections, or anything. We were due for our first near-miss! Things were a little hectic between a major accident on the road back to Hanoi delaying the buses, and our first tropical rainstorm (no complaints, we heard it had rained for 10 days in HaLong right before we got there, but our cruise was perfect. We have been SUPER lucky with weather!) With everything going on, we didn't realize for awhile that we had gotten skipped somehow, and missed our van. As the other passengers started filing out, we caught on just in time and managed to grab spots on the last van out (the driver and I got very cozy on the 4-hour ride). Whew!

We travelled from Hanoi via overnight train, the "Reunification Express," which was not a bad experience. The sleeper beds were pretty comfortable. The only surprise was the whole family of four who had the two little bunks right below us. We're not sure how they all fit, but they made it work. The views out the window as we came down along the coast were spectacular. We arrived in DaNang and got a taxi to Hoi An, so we got to see some of the rapid development in DaNang along the way. Investors are buying beachfront property faster than they can build, and we learned the Vietnamese government is putting a lot of emphasis on building up this area.

In Hoi An, we spent our first full day at the beach, which is beautiful! The water is clear and the mountains in the background make for an awesome view. We discovered that the sun is brutal and the best move is to take cover under a big umbrella for most of the day. 

The custom tailors really are their own cultural adventure in central Vietnam. They are EVERYWHERE on the streets, and salespeople will follow you down and across a crowded street to try and get you to come into their shop. Depending on the quality of the tailor, a custom-made suit costs somewhere between $50 and $200, and it is definitely THE thing to do in Hoi An. After doing a little research, we discovered the clothes only really come out well when you go back for multiple fittings, which are all recorded down on a tiny pink slip of paper that is VERY important to the Vietnamese (I clearly lost mine within an hour- who would have thought everyone put so much stock in that little thing?!) So back and back to tailor Kimmy we went. 4 fittings and an undisclosed amount of dong later, we think we got some good stuff, and made friends with our seamstresses of course.

Our other big adventure here was a full day motorbike tour around the area. (Mom: No, we did not drive. Yes, we had helmets. Yes, the guides were experienced. Yes, we're glad we bought good travel medical insurance). In short, it was awesome! We rolled convoy-style with a solid crew: our British guide Hawk at the front, our new Aussie friends next, me & my guy Nim, Noah & ?? (our Vietnamese is rough) and the trusty mechanic bringing up the rear.

 We rode from Hoi An to DaNang, up into the mountains, and around some small villages. It was good to see a more rural side of Vietnam after the built-up areas we've been to so far. Much of Vietnam is still kickin it old-school: hand picking rice, hand-netting shrimp, and tending to their water buffalo. 

Our tour "leader" (the government prohibits non-Vietnamese from being "guides") was great and very knowledgeable about the sites we visited. We saw everything from a 900-year old Cham temple to the modern lady Buddha Quan Yin (sp?), the largest lady statue in the world. Up in the mountains, we saw monkeys hopping from tree to tree, and down on the village roads, we had to stop the bikes for cows to cross the road. Our favorite part was the spectacular view from on top Son Tra mountain, although I had to close my eyes for some of the ride downhill! 

We plan to spend the rest of our rigorous visit in Hoi An hanging out on An Bang beach, eating good seafood, partaking in the happy hour specials everywhere along the riverfront, and of course, meeting with our many custom fitting appointment obligations.