A short flight from Nha Trang to Danang, from where we are bused to Hoi An, a.k.a shoppers paradise. Hoi An is a quaint village that contains over 300 tailors. They can whip up entire outfits overnight...we are somewhat confident that the "tailors" are not a child sweatshop...somewhat.
There are a few tourist options - ancient temples, cooking classes, beaches - but feeling we'd done a bit of all of those already, we felt justified spending our entire three nights shopping, eating, roaming the streets of the old town....and drinking cocktails.
.
We had a great time in Hoi An. The town is very pleasant, the pace of life is most agreeable, the shopping was surprisingly fun, and we found some excellent Vietnamese food.
First food visit was the one our guide took us to, called Green Chilli. It was okay and the chef was without doubt most theatrical and exuberant, however we did end up feeling it was a little more pricey than needed to be. We sampled the one of the local specialities, white rose, which is small shrimp wrapped in rice paper and shaped to look like a White Rose. I guess it was attractive enough to look at, but fairly bland.
The next morning dawned and we began our shopping. The town is famed for tailoring, and we had planned to acquire some new outfits. It was a little daunting to begin with admittedly, because the tailor shops have literally hundreds and hundreds of bolts of cloth available to select from… and dozens upon dozens of albums of pictures of clothing styles.
We occasionally needed a quick break from shopping and being measured up...very thirsty work, thankfully bars were frequent and cocktail extremely cheap...and yes it is still morning, don't judge, it is veeeery hot here. Andrew and Tracey head off in different directions in search for those who would tailor our new wardrobe. Moving toward lunch time, Tracey took a quick rickshaw back to the hotel...again don't judge, it is really hot and our hotel is a 25 minute walk. We meet back for lunch (having shopped up a storm) at a place we'd been recommended, Morning Glory...it is the name of a vegetable here, get your mind out of the gutter. The food was outstanding, the highlight being the pigs ear salad, below:
The eggplant with garlic and chilli was also delicious and, pleasingly, not saturated with oil as is too often the case with eggplant. We also sampled Ms Vy's prawn curry (she's the owner and chef).
The afternoon was a little more of the same, shopping punctuated with refreshments before back to the hotel as the storms hit, gee what to do...let's sit by the hotel's lotus pond for a cocktail.
The next day it is time for our first fittings. Andrew's first (of many) shirts is already done and looks great. So good, he orders 7 more that will be ready by that afternoon...seriously. While at it, Tracey has a dress whipped up...why the heck not. This place is better than Christmas. Next, Andrew picks up his resoled shoes, yes they make custom made shoes here also.
Time for lunch, down a small alley we find a peaceful haven, Secret Garden Restaurant. We felt lucky to have found it, down the end of a very anonymous and uninteresting-looking alleyway. A small glass of fresh passionfruit juice (this was a first for us, but hasn't been the last subsequently) led us into a delicious meal. The Vietnamese galettes (soft and rice noodles wrapped around shrimp, pork mince and wood-ear mushrooms) were smashing and by a long distance the best "wrapped" starter we've had this trip.
A few more fittings at a few more stores, it is amazing what they have created overnight. You can just show them a photo of an outfit, pick out your fabric then like magic, it appears in a few short hours.
There are numerous little oases in which you can hide from the afternoon heat, one of the more picturesque below:
Fitting experiences differed, ranging from the cramped and hot (ok, they're all hot but some have more fans), to the processed (Yaly, who seem to have done very well indeed since appearing on Top Gear some years back) and the far more personal touch at Blue Eye where Thy (pictured, with Andrew in new Blue Eye shirt) and Tracey in new not-Blue Eye top) helped us through numerous measurings and fittings over two days. Every time we turned up we were given cold water (hurrah!), sat in comfy large couches and were treated very hospitably. They expect more than one fitting to make sure everything fit perfectly for you.
Once all the fittings were completed, we had so many bags that we considered getting a pole to put on a shoulder and hang them off........but we resisted the temptation, agreed that lunch had been outstanding, and returned to Secret Garden for dinner......and cocktails.
No comments:
Post a Comment