Our last day in Hoi An (although i am definitly returning!)

we are having a nice relaxing day today to prepare ourselves for the night bus tonight. we slept in (well until 8.30am) and had some breakfast and watched some tv until it was time to check out (we waited right until 12pm taking full advantage of this late check out). we then left our bags at the cafe we brought our bus ticket from yesterday, hopefully our bags will be safe there!!!
we went and stocked up on a few last minute souvenirs and then trekked to the post office and mailed a big box of stuff home. this cost about $35 which we thought was pretty good because its 4 plastic bags full of stuff in the box!
at the moment we are sitting in a resturant having a long lunch. i ordered vegetable spring rolls for an entree and they turned out having tofu in them so ewen wasnt impressed... on the plus side i am finally mastering the use of chop sticks. pity we are already more than half way through our Vietnam adventure.
we still have three hours until our bus leaves so not sure what we'll be doing... im considering buying a bag because the one i have has now stained two of my tops with black marks, stupid weather here making me so sweaty the colour on my bag runs! it is a great bag for keeping my belongings safe just doesnt handle the heat too well... kind of like me!
anyway this is the last post from Hoi An, talk to you all when i'm in Nha Trang relaxing on the beach and snorkelling fingers crossed we see some turtles and no nemo fish!!! hehe


Ewen outside the resturant we had lunch at, this is a few minutes before it started bucketing down with rain!

me walking down a new (to us) alleyway we discovered, it lead through lots of different shops and ended at a rice field.

Saturday in Hoi An

Went and had fittings for my dresses and ewens coat in the morning and then went for a walk, we ended up at the tailor that our hotel VERY STRONGLY recommended to us on several occasions, i had seen a jacket i liked in a different shop and as we had read reviews saying the staff at our hotel could get very narky if you dont buy from their recommended tailor i ordered the coat through them, we ordered it at about 10.30am and after a fitting in the afternoon i was able to pick the jacket up at 6pm along with my two dresses and ewens coat from the other tailor. all seem to be very good quality.


I have just realied those are the only photos we took yesterday, we are getting slack already, will have to make up for it by taking lots of photos today!
we didnt do much else apart from the clothes fittings, we skipped lunch as i wasn't feeling very well and went to a book shop instead where i got a second hand book to read on the bus tomorrow on our way to Nha Trang. we had dinner at a restaurant over looking the river where they have a bakery with lots of really nice cakes and desserts. we are going back there for lunch today to have desserts because we didnt have any last night.
also today we need to book either a train or bus ticket to Nha Trang, still havent decided which one would be better.
so whats everyone else up to today???? ewens still in bed and im sitting in the foyer (although its really just a patio... now walls) of our hotel because the internet reception in the room is very weak...
talk soon
love piet
ps. happy mothers day!!!

here are some more photos....

this is the strawberry cake i had which was delicious! i only ate half my lunch so as to be sure i would be able to fit it all in!!! was soooo tasty!

this is a sneaky shot i took of a guy wearing the exact same hat ewen got me as a joke for valentines day!!


some people riding bikes laden with various objects. they are also wearing the traditional hat of Vietnam, the conical hat.


walking across the bridge to get back to our hotel, you can see our resort in the background.


one of many lantern shops in Hoi An, i ended up buying three lanterns after much deliberation. i got them from a different store though. ive sent them home so hopefully they make the journey safely!

Planning already

we are already planning our next trip to Hoi An in approx a year and a half (possibly this time frame is a tad unrealistic) anyone who wants to come with us start ripping pages out magazines of clothes you want, it is definitly worth it! ewen picked up his winter coat last night and it is beautiful and was only $60USD and feels like very good quality, would easiy be $200 in australia. and i saw some girls with what looked like the entire bardot catalogue getting things made... was so jealous! we didnt come prepared. next time its carry on luggage only, buy a suitcase when we get here and have a wardrobe custom made!!!P

Clothes clothes & more clothes

First thing this morning we went off looking for a tailor called Yaly because we had heard good things about them (there are approx 400 tailors here so it makes it very hard to choose just one). we sat in Yaly looking through books of magazine clippings for over an hour trying to choose something for them to make for us. i decided on two dresses and after ewen found out they couldnt make him a military jacket he decided on a winter coat.



They are doing a lot of road works down by the river and this is on of the machines they are using.

we then went and had a drink at a river-front cafe where i had the most disgusting pineapple juice off the trip so far.



This woman requested we take a photo with her, she then proceeded to try to get us to pay $1 for a banana as payment for taking her photo....

we went for a walk and i ended up stopping at a different tailors and getting some pants made and THEN we went to yet another tailors and i ordered another dress and ewen ordered some shorts and a shirt.
we went to a nice resturant for lunch where they gave us ice cold face washers which was very refreshing after walking aroud in the heat all morning. we liked this resturant so much we came back here for tea too!
after lunch we walked back to the hotel to get ewens atm card because mine wouldnt let me draw out any cash (i had paid a deposit with it at yaly and the atms either told me they were unable to perform a transaction or i was over my daily limit... hopefully my card will work today).


Here is the Japanese Bridge, old isn't it......

we ended up going for a swim and then heading back into town at about 5.30 to go to the the second two tailors to get our clothes fitted and see if they needed adjusting. none of them did so we ended up getting one dress, one pair of pants, one pair of shorts and one shirt made in about 6 hours!
today we have a fitting at yaly at 10am. all up my three dresses and pants will cost me about $120. the two dresses from yaly are $50 each but thats because i chose nice fabric and they have linings.
so that was our friday, today we plan to walk arond some of the historical sights and maybe go to the beach this afternoon.
missing everyone!!!
xoxox

Hoi An

Today is our first day in Hoi An, we got here at about 11.30 after a 3 hour drive from Hue where our driver stopped three times trying to get us to buy overpriced souvenirs from shops where he gets a nice commission (we assumed). We had stopped in one shop like this on our drive to Halong Bay but three different stops were a tad ridiculous. One of them was nice though as it was on top of a hill and had nice views down to the beach




After having a quick look at our room we went for a walk into town to get some lunch and had a look around the shops before coming back to the hotel to have a swim in the pool. The pool looks out over the river
and while we were swimming we watched a group of people filming some kind of tv show or movie, we liked to think we had just seen some famous Vietnamese actors!



Before tea we went for a walk in a market and both got hats for about $2