Vietnam - Day 7 - Coco Beach and the trip back to Sai Gon | Main | Day 9 - Hoi An
We have been here a week now and have seriously dropped into the swing of Viet nam - note the space, here it is two words like Ha noi and Sai gon - not the way we Westerners have been taught. After a very comfortable night at the Thein Than Hotel and a lovely breakfast out the back next to the pool and the paddies that run behind the hotel.
We decided to get the tailor stuff out of the way first, we took the advice of our hotel and went to Toto which is near by, not crazy busy and had a good range of fabrics. The experience took most of the morning with Eve buying a suit, jacket, shirts and various other things and me ordering two suits, a dinner jacket and 5 shirts - all this for $800 and we felt they were probably over charging us. We then went to a shoe store where they will copy any design and make it fit your feet exactly again after searching the catalogues and going through some exacting measurements we ordered 4 pairs of shoes for $150.
We wandered the shops and went to a number of the historic buildings, Hoi An has an annoying system that means you have to buy a set of tickets 5 entries to various places for 75,000 dong - quite expensive by relative standards. The annoying thing is you might want all of the temples, this ticket only lets you visit 1 temple - so you would need 5 sets of 5 tickets if you wanted to see all 5 temples! Actually the working temples were fantastic and free and there are plenty of them, it is also a pleasure walking down the narrow alley ways and looking into the houses to experience the local lifestyle.
We had a great lunch and slowly made our way back buying trinkets as we went (we so need to post stuff back) we got back to the hotel and had a rest and a change before dinner at the the renowned Cafe Des Amis where Chef Mr Kim cooks a set menu with what ever he thinks is interesting and good today - as you get the food they come round and show you how to eat it poking at it and making it up in to small amounts for you. When we left Mr Kim said to us that every night the food gets better and that our last night in town should be the last time we go, then it would be the best food ever.
We wandered back past the pretty shops with all the coloured lanterns, the ferries taking the workers back to there homes and up past the tailors making clothes for the travelers to take away tomorrow its a strange town - touristy, but beautifully historic, generous and warm, fabulous food and a shopping mecca!
We arrived back to the lovely Thien Than Hotel, where we were warmly greeted and welcomed back... these are lovely people.
Posted by crispin at December 28, 2007 12:53 AM