Hoi An

Today is the last of almost 3 days in the so called "sleepy" town of Hoi An. We have had a pretty interesting time, but still can't figure out if we like it or not. Driving in to the town, we were so excited and fell in love at once with the old style houses, the colourful boats on the river and the prospect of getting any garment at all made to fit you perfectly. That's where the trouble began. I'm a pretty indecisive person in general, but when you have hundreds of different patterns, materials, styles and modifications to consider, you can get very confused very quickly. Just choosing which tailor shop to go to (there are over 200 in the small town) is a mammoth effort in itself. There are even places where you can get shoes made to fit you exactly, complete with your own design and colour. We went to almost every shop, hoping to find some kind of sign that this was "the one" but after a whole day and a half of wandering, we just picked a couple of random ones and hoped for the best. Claire got 2 dresses, a suit blazer, 2 pairs of shoes, a silk shirt, skirt and 4 dress shirts made in various locations around town. This made it interesting when we had to co ordinate multiple fittings at different times, the difficulty in actually finding the places only adding to the fun... It is a novelty to have clothes made this way, but as we are all finding out, it can be really unnecessarily stressful! I was so overwhelmed for the entire time that I only just got a dress made today, with this adorable lady who completely restored our faith in Hoi An and the tailoring business in general. She was sweet and gentle, and really did want to make us happy as her customers. When I couldn't decide on anything, she told me not to buy something for the sake of it, because it would never be right. She made Claire the most beautiful things out of everything she bought, and so e went back every single day. She was so happy when I finally decided on something, and spent the afternoon helping me plan it. The enjoyment she got from making the things for us really showed, and made the whole experience really wonderful. We have spent the whole of today telling everyone to go there.
There seems to be a group of about 20 of us (backpackers) who all end up in the same towns at around the same time. It is the most bizarre thing to be walking down the street in a Vietnamese town and bump into people you know more often than you would at home. It's great though, we all went out last night and the night before, and feel so lucky to have met such an amazing group of people. We had a couple of cocktails at a good spot after dinner, but were keen to head back to the hotel by about 11. The weather has been a bit horrible, with flooding and rain, so we weren't surprised when it was drizzling as we started walking home. Two minutes later it had turned into a torrential downpour and we were stranded out in the street getting absolutely soaked. All we could do was laugh and run, trying not to slip over or fall in a puddle as we tried to navigate our way past bikes and what appeared to be waterfalls coming off the roof of every shop. It was so funny.
This morning we got up bright and early (we didn't need an alarm clock because we have been woken at 6:30am on the dot every morning by some man hucking up his lungs in the next room. Yummy.) and decided to hire a couple of bikes. We spent a couple of hours just biking around, seeing some of the less busy areas of Hoi An, where it is much more peaceful and there are less hoards of camera wielding foreigners. We stopped at a little food market and Claire got into this massive bartering argument with one lady, who stole her money then gave it back and succeeded in confusing the hell out of me. It ended with Claire in possession of 4 lychees and a smack from this crazy laughing lady.At one point during our ride, a man went past us on a motorbike and looked at us over his shoulder for long enough for it to be a little creepy. About 50m ahead he pulled over and got off his motorbike, and proceeded to unzip his pants (yes, it is what you think) and shout "hello" as we went by. I think he was after a bigger reaction than us just looking the other way, but we're still unsure just what he was trying to achieve.
On a lighter note, there is this one lady walking the streets of Hoi An who has made my stay in this town completely worthwhile. She is old and slow, and is the master of what can only be described as heaven in a bowl. You can hear her from miles away, this incredibly distinct call of what sounds like "Cow Hong Laow" but is most probably something completely different. It is (apparently) boiled down soy beans, and is one of the hardest things to explain, let alone make it sounds as appetising as it actually is. It has the appearance of natural yoghurt, the consistency of jelly, and tastes like sweet porridge. She puts grated ginger and some kind of sauce on top, which tastes a bit like golden syrup. Oh my god. Today, I saw her across the street and heard her calling out whatever it is she calls, and my stomach literally somersaulted with excitement. I am pretty sure I ran across the road to her I was that happy! Claire just laughed but it was most definitely  the best part of my day!
Tonight we are going on the sleeper bus again, 12 hours, but hopefully we can snag a seat that is more than 2 feet from the toilet. We have decided to bypass Nha Trang because it's waist deep in water, but are heading for the higher ground of Dalat instead. Altogether I think we're in for 20+ hours of travel. Good thing we bought books!