Hoi An - What a great place

Location: Sapa - far north Vietnam
Weather: Coldish, misty and mountainous

Waiting for the "Open Tour" bus that I had a ticket for from Quang Ngai to Hoi An was fun. I had to wait by a bridge on the main road and guess when it would turn up. It turned into a 1 hour nightmare of standing in the direct sun(no shade anywhere), repeatedly saying "No" to the hoards of men trying to get me to take other buses. It was near impossible trying to explain I already had a ticket and some of those blokes were a bit scary. Put it this way, I took my knife out of my bag and armed myself, I was that concerned about my safety. BUT, the bus came and all was excellent. The 3 hour trip to Hoi An was great, smooth road and no probs. I checked into this hotel and the room was fantastic. I was a 5 minute walk from the middle of town, which was ok by me.
Hoi An is a great place - as well as being very relaxing, it has a nice river by it, lovely restaurants, but is most famous for its clothes. It is a very small town, but has hundreds of tailors as well as shoe makers. On every street you can have suits, dresses and just about anything else made in a multitude of coloured fabrics and silks. It's all made-to-measure, even the shoes plus they can copy any garment for you as well. It's also the cheapest price is Asia - when you see the label "Made in Vietnam" I expect it's from here. I bought a grey casual suit for 25quid, 4 shirts, some jeans and a leather jacket. In case you're wondering about quality, the shirts are the best I've ever had and they cost 4pounds each! They make the clothes in a few hours, usually overnight(some tailors do the work above their shop, others I think have them made in a factory I saw down a road where all I could hear was sewing machines running). They alter them within an hour or two (you always have to get them altered to some extent). It's a woman's paradise this town, I met 2 Danish girls and they spent $350 each!

Hoi An is quite an ancient town and has several old buildings, temples and houses to see, some families have lived there for many generations and they invite you in for tea. One day I took a daytrip 40km's south down to My Son where Vietnam's most evocative Cham ruins are to be found. The Cham culture ruled Vietnam for 1000 years until the 14th century, they are signified by their Angkor Watish like brick towers(the Chams came from Cambodia I think). We saw a few of these towers and then sailed back to Hoi An on the river. There's also a superb sandy beach just 4km's down the road from Hoi An, I'd say better than Nhatrang, the only problem being the numerous fruit, massage and nic-nac sellers there who hassel you every 10 seconds, oh and it was a bit windy as well.

I really liked Hoi An, hanging out with a few friends I first met in Saigon, also made it a great time.

PHOTOS TO BE ADDED SOON

By JamesReed on 21.04.05 @ 03:55 PM GMT