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Vietnam the third: day 10, Hoi An
For the right price, I’m not sure there isn’t anything that Hoi An can’t make. Clothes like business and casual shirts? Sure. Leather shoes and bags? Not a problem. Jewellery? We got that. Possibly the world’s best sandwiches? Come back tomorrow and I’ll probably have a post then. A house? Hoi An can probably make that too, possibly with an extra charge if we need two scooters to transport it. Make this paragraph’s first sentence with all the multiple negatives make sense? They can probably make that too. Our first stop this morning was a regular haunt, Yaly Couture. We’ve been getting clothes made here since our first tour in…
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Vietnam the third: day 9, Sapa-Hanoi-Hoi An
Today was, simply, a travel day. We hit the hotel breakfast at 7am, just to get something into us before the day kicked off. Our goal was to get out of town before the various streetsellers, who we’d been telling that we were leaving Sunday so we’d be shopping Saturday, caught on and swamped us/set the car on fire/whatever they do in this town. Our car picked us up at about 7.45am, by which stage a few streetsellers were around, but not ones we’d encountered before. We were close to getting away clean, but our driver had another pickup right in the centre, and while the new passengers were being…
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Day 22: Hoi An we’re flying
Sitting in the business class lounge at Changi’s terminal 3, we’re half way home. One more flight, one more lot of customs, one more car ride and that’s it. Our own house, out own beds, doing our own washing and cleaning. Three weeks doesn’t seem like a long time in the whole scheme of things, and there are times when it certainly feels longer than others. It’s been a great trip, but we’re also glad to be heading home. Today started way too early, we had a car to the airport booked for 8am, so of course we slept badly. From around 6am there was music coming in from somewhere,…
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Day 21: Hoi An today, gone tomorrow
Our last day in Hoi An, and L’s birthday (age unspecified). We kicked off with our standard hotel breakfast, though I had to stop and post a picture as it seems, following yesterday’s pic, a significant amount of dragon fruit envy out there. I hadn’t realised as, other than looking absolutely alien on the outside, the inside edible part is somewhere between kiwifruit and watermelon, not a strong taste, and lots of little black seeds. We’ve been having it almost every day on our trip. We took a boat ride along the river, paddled by a woman who was certainly no spring chicken, but I’m not game to arm wrestle.…
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Day 20: Hoi An by a thread
Today we got our clothes. My masterpiece of a jacket fits great, and looks pretty special. It’s probably safe to say it’s a one-of-a-kind, as I doubt anyone else has been “inspired” enough to get a jacket in that material. Now I just need it to get cool enough to wear it. I also got a tie in the same fabric to match, and some awesome shirts, and a decent pair of pants. L also got the bulk of her clothes today, with just a couple of dresses coming tomorrow. This included the huge skirt, which the store owners have gone from incredibly dubious about to incredibly proud of (like…
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Day 19: Hoi An then a step to the right
A quiet start to the day, some lounging and relaxing as all our clothes fittings were scheduled for the afternoon. Again it was a stroll into the old town for lunch, where we found a place that had french fries so L could have a carb fix that wasn’t rice, as gluten free bread is nowhere to be found here. I went for the white rose, one of those local specialty dishes that is a must try yadda yadda, but I’m somewhat underwhelmed by. Basically it’s about a cubic centimetre of prawn filling in the centre of a rice flour wonton wrapper that is scrunched decoratively, sprinkled with fried garlic…
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Day 18: Hoi An you can believe it
Today was the first full day in Hoi An, and we certainly did consumerism proud. If you take away the whole UNESCO world heritage listing of the old town the business of Hoi An is business, specifically making stuff: clothes, jewellery, glasses, more clothes, and other shiny things. The hotel breakfast is okay, nothing too flash but enough to take the edge off. From here it’s about 500m to where all the main stuff is, but there are a few shops on the way to get essentials (water, rice cookers, beer, massage) if needed. We took a slightly different way into town today, and found a neighbourhood of cafes, all…
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Day 17: Hanoi and Hoi An, a tale of two anagram cities
We kicked off our last day in Hanoi with the standard hotel breakfast, before plunging forth into mid-morning traffic in search of S****ucks, so L could add the special Vietnam mug to our collection (I was also tempted to get the Hanoi mug, as it’s bright orange on the inside, and we don’t have any that colour, but I’m not sure I’d want a coffee in a mug that colour, either). Mug purchased, we meandered back through a few stores to see what we could find (obligatory Vietnam pun: in Hanoi it’s okay to Hang Bac, hyuk hyuk hyuk). We’d kind of discussed the whole Hanoi egg coffee thing, and…
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Day 10 – Hoi An to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC)
I’ve been avoiding talking about the American/Vietnam war mostly, as I’m here for food not politics. Heading south, it’s harder to avoid, there are still scars and remnants and today’s tour was war heavy. Probably a good think L wasn’t 100% so took a rest day in the rather poor quality hotel room. Up early in Hoi An to bus to Danang for the flight to HCMC. Hotel kindly packed us breakfast for eating at the airport. The breakfast was nothing flash, the only edible part were the over hard boiled eggs, the rest was old bread, weird green fruit that no two tasted the same (looked like a small…
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Hoi An part 2
Food: There was much good food in Hoi An, but I’m going to give the award to the 30000 VND ($1.50) pho and tea two doors down from the hotel/resort we were staying at. Lovely fresh flavours, lots of fabulous chilli paste, and very unpretentious – the owners’ small child was running around (at least we thought it was the owners’, it could have been anyone’s) and was happy to be picked up and smiled at. It wasn’t an official recommended place, just somewhere we wandered into walking back one night. Also not official but very popular with our group was the local fresh beer hall, 3000 VND (15 cents)…
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Days 7,8,9 – Hoi An 1
Condensing all the days in Hoi An into one post, as a way of catching up and also for continuity reasons. Hue to Hoi An by bus, a fairly long but pretty drive, three mountain passes and at the top of the tallest one remnants of French bunkers and an even older gate. Lunch stop was at a bakery along the beachfront in Da Nang, had a steamed bun and a vol au vent type thing, nothing special but apparently the baguettes were fabulous. Also had a quick break to take some photos of the little boats the fishermen use to get to the bigger boats, groovy little half balls.…
