Hoi An, a cute city filled with tailor shops, street vendors, and friendly people. The town is very small, maybe 10 streets by 10 streets and is a quiet place with very little going on, which is nice when coming from a large city.
On the evening of the 24th, after our celebratory drinks, our group of five decided to do a secret-santa for Christmas. Our spending limit would be 150,000 dong (just under $8 US) and we all picked names from a bag to determine who our gift recipient would be. I picked Henry, the unlucky one who crashed his motorbike on our 140 km ride to Hoi An.
The following morning, Lusa and I walked around town and past all of the tailor shops with women inside calling out for us to look inside. We admired the winter coats, custom-fitted dresses, tailor made shoes, shorts, skirts, pants, and suits. The amount of tailor shops in this city is incredible! And that’s what this place is known for.
My first stop shopping was a pharmacy to buy Henry some antibiotic ointment for all of his cuts and scrapes. I thought picking out food to eat was difficult… try explaining what type of ointment you want when the lady behind the counter only speaks Vietnamese! I searched my body for a little scratch and lifted up my leg to show her that baby scratch and then swiped my index finger on the palm of my hand and then onto that scratch to demonstrate how I wanted something to rub on it. She walked me behind the counter and pointed to about 30 different kinds of creams. One-by-one I read each Vietnamese label and searched the words for recognition of a familiar ingredient. I found one that said antibiotic and asked if this was for my scratch (lifted my leg again and pointed to the mark). “Ungh” she said, which means yes.
Lusa and I walked a few more streets until we reached the river where a daily market was set up. Inside the market we found fresh fruits, vegetables, freshly caught fish, butchered beef, hanging chickens (live, dead, or skinned and butchered already), chicken feet, heads, all sorts of bird eggs; the market even had a section dedicated to selling fake jewelry like pearls and stones, which the shop owners tried to convince us were real.
We passed a lady cooking eggs in a little pan. We watched as she poured some oil into the tiny dish and then cracked a couple eggs into the pan. She stirred and let it sit before flipping the egg omelet over and adding all sorts of Vietnamese vegetables, bean sprouts, and chili peppers. It looked pretty nice, so Lusa and I ordered up and took a seat on these little plastic stools as another Vietnamese lady who worked there started speaking to us in English. She brought over some thin, soft rice paper and extra vegetables for our meal. She showed us the proper way to wrap up the omelets as well. They were delicious!
Soon our new English speaking friend, Ly, was laughing and joking with us and rubbing our arms and shoulders, telling us, “she give massage, we should try”. “I also do manicure and pedicure, very nice, good price, you like?” I didn’t really want to get a massage here, we were in the middle of a market, this lady’s hands were dirty and it didn’t seem like it would be a relaxing thing to do. Lusa had never had a massage before and really wanted one from our new friend, Ly, so pretty soon, we were face down on these fold-out massage tables inside of this crazy food market. Ly called her sister, Phuong, on the phone and soon we had two massage ladies to ‘relax’ us. They started pulling off our tops and my mind started spinning thinking about all of the people walking through this market. Luckily there was a curtain and Lusa and I were sort of shielded from the rest of the market by a piece of dirty white cloth.
Apparently, Phuong was having a rough day. The entire time she was massaging me she was yelling Vietnamese words to her sister. I could tell she wasn’t even paying attention to what she was doing because all of her attention was focused on venting about some husband problem, I’m sure. She was barely touching my back, it felt like a monkey was giving me a massage… just touching and pushing in random places. I shyly asked her in slow-spoken English, “can you please go harder, stronger?” And she exhaled a huge sigh and made a sound that only a temperamental child would make. She took her hands off me and yelled something to her sister. They switched places and now I was finally having a semi-decent massage. I could still hear Phuong yelling from Lusa’s table but at least it wasn’t in my ear anymore. Sorry Lusa.
The rest of my massage went pretty well, until the very last minute of it. Ly started massaging my head and temples, which felt nice; but then she started scratching and squeezing things on my face with her sharp nails! All I could think was how oily and dirty her hands were and how she was hurting my face! I didn’t even have any blemishes or anything on this day and here I was, trapped and being tortured by this lady! My eyes flashed wide open and I waved my hand and said,”no no no”. So she said, “okay then, done!”
Well, our massages were finished and we paid our $3 while trying to bolt out of there as quickly as possible. Ly kept asking us when we would be back and was blocking our exit. The only way she let us escape was after promising to come back the next morning at 9am (yeah right!).
The white shirt I was wearing now had dirty oil marks all over the back of it and I was pretty displeased about the whole thing. We carried on looking for secret-santa gifts and I bought Henry a green-khaki colored hat with a red Vietnam
It was almost time to meet up with the guys and my gifts for Henry weren’t wrapped yet. I popped into a tailor shop when I saw a stack of used newspapers by the door and as Lusa and I walked to dinner, I was wrapping each item 5 times with newspapers. Unwrapping is the best part anyway, right?
When we met up with Mike, Henry, and Gareth, they were talking to a couple girls we had met in Hue
We found a nice restaurant on the river and ordered a few bottles of Dalat red wine and talked as our table of seven was set-up. We ordered and soon were retelling our motorbike journey to Sam and Sarah. They were surprised we ever made it to Hoi An at all!
Soon after the appetizers came we started the secret-santa gift exhange and each person said why they bought the gifts that they did and who they were for. It was a very nice gift exchange and really heart-felt. Mike was my secret-santa and bought me four wonderful gifts. First was a wood carved turtle that had the Chinese/Vietnamese zodiac marked on its shell. The shell of the turtle slid to the side and revealed a compass. Mike commented on me navigating and leading our group on motorbikes and said this compass was appropriate. He also got me some tiger balm, a souvenir mirror, and a bottle of Vietnamese rice whiskey with a little cobra snake inside it! Wow, I lucked out with a great secret-santa.
After our feast we walked around town and into a small bar called Dream, where we were the only patrons. The bartenders waved us towards the bar and promised us a round a free drinks as they started pouring. The rum and coke’s were strong and we flicked through songs on their itunes playlist to find something to dance to. Dream was a little bar with white walls which were covered with writing in black permanent marker. We reached for markers and soon were solidifying that we too had been to Dream/Hoi An/Vietnam/Asia.
An hour later we jumped onto the backs of motorbike taxis and directed the drivers to take us to a bar which was recommended to us, the “WHY NOT 2” bar (the original “WHY NOT” bar is in Nha Trang). Again, we were the only people inside this little bar which had a pool table, four chairs, and two couches outside. We spent the next couple of hours picking out songs, playing pool, and dancing around our second private party of the night. My Vietnamese pool partner/motorbike driver proposed to me, but sadly I said “no”. By the end of the night we were all behind the bar making drinks, hugging the bartenders, and taking pictures. It was a great night.
Gareth and Henry had checked into a really nice hotel for Christmas, so the following morning Lusa and I rode bicycles over to visit and lay by the pool. We read our books and relaxed as we ate some fresh dragon fruit, apples, pomellos, and oranges I had picked up in the market and after a couple hours, Lusa rode off in search of a new hotel for us.
She found a nice place and we rode our bikes to our original hotel, heaved our big backpacks on our backs, and slowly cycled to our new home. My backpack was so heavy that I had to grip my handle bars with all my strength so I wouldn’t fall backwards and off the bike! But, we made it, settled in, and set off to check out a few tailor stores to see what’s out there.
Three hours later, we had placed orders in five different shops between us, had fittings scheduled for the morning, and had booked our bus to Nha Trang that would leave the following evening at 6pm. Productive day. The best part of these shops is that you get to flip through stylish magazines, point to something you like, and then they measure you and let you pick out the material you want to use for that item. I had ordered 3 shorts, a sweatshirt, two pairs of shoes, two t-shirts, four tank-tops, and a dress-shirt. Inside the tailor shops are stacks and stacks of fabric for you to choose from, but in one of my shops I couldn’t find the color I was looking for. My favorite part of the day happened next. The shop owner handed me a helmet and told me to hop on the back of her bike; she was going to take me to their manufacturer.
Before I knew it, I was on her motorbike weaving through Hoi An. We rode 10 minutes away to a slightly larger shop completely filled with fabrics. I’ve never seen so many clothing materials in my life! I had the choice of thousands of colors and styles and was so excited to be there! I found the perfect coral color and soon my stylist and I were back on our bikes driving to her shop. Mission
The next day was complete chaos! My first fitting was at 9am at one shop, 9:30am at another, and 1:00 at the shoe shop. Lusa and I rented bicycles for the day and all day we rode around the city past other bicyclists, motorbikes, cars, and pedestrians.
In the first shop I tried on the 3 pairs of shorts I ordered and the custom sweatshirt I had made. The shorts were too short and too tight, but the sweater seemed alright. They told me to come back at 12:00pm for another fitting of the shorts. Inside the second shop, three of the tank tops were alright, one needed alterations, one of the t-shirts needed to be fixed, and the dress-shirt needed to be altered. I was instructed to come back at 1:30pm.
At 12:00pm I tried on my shorts again and one pair was right but two still needed fixing, “come back at 1:00”. I had a one hour break and Lusa and I met up to eat some lunch and talk about our hectic tailor days. She only had thirty minutes to chat and then had to rush off to another fitting. Lusa was having shorts, shirts, a suit, a winter coat, and a skirt made.
At 1:00pm both of my shoes needed to be fixed and they said to be back at 3:00pm. Good news, my shorts were now perfect. I paid for my shorts and sweatshirt and wore the gray sweatshirt out since it was cooling down outside. At 1:30pm my shirts were all great except for one and they said to be back at 2:30. I had another hour break and bumped into Gareth while riding past him on my bike. We went back to the same café Lusa and I had eaten at and had something to eat to pass the time. He had a couple hours to waste until his next fitting and rode around with me to my next two.
At 2:30 all of my shirts were perfect and at 3:00 my shoes were great too! Perfect. But after I left the shoe shop I noticed my sweater starting to fall apart and went back to that shop to have it fixed. One phone call and less than five minutes later, the tailor showed up to pick up the sweater and said he’d be back in 30 minutes. I rode off to pick up Lusa, Gareth, and my bus ticket and returned in time to see a newly repaired sweater. Yeah!
Phew, back to the hotel just in time to finish packing up, eat a couple dumplings off a street vendor, and throw my bags into a little van that would bring us to our overnight bus. What a day!
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