Shop Til You Drop, Hoi An

Kevin At Lang Co Beach - first stop of the bus ride.
see all photos »

Kevin and I ended up in a really nice bus, leaving at an absurd hour from Hue to Hoi An. It was worth it, though, because the bus stopped at Lang Co Beach and then Marble Mountain, outside of Danang. We had 45 minutes to explore Marble Mountain, so it was a whirlwind of sights (and gigantic flights of stairs) and little time to do it. Would we make it back on the bus or would it leave without us, that was the question.

Marble Mountain is a natural wonder. Very beautiful. It's these large cliffs made of marble smack dab in the middle of the city. People sell marble sculptures all around the perimeter of Marble Mountain, but they are actually not from Marble Mountain. They realized that if they kept taking the marble from the mountain, then there would be nothing left to see for tourism, so now they import all the marble from China. There were many caves and massive Buddhist sculptures chiseled into the mountain. Some of my favorite pictures we've had from the trip so far are of us lighting incense by a Buddhist sculpture in one of the caves. The sign the Buddha is giving with his hand is a sign for "good luck," so we thought it would be ok to splurge (ha - $.30) on buying the incense from the tiny Vietnamese woman selling it to burn for good luck. We were on the very top of the mountain taking pictures of ourselves overlooking the China Sea, when we realized that it had been about 50 minutes. Well, let me tell you, sole-less flip flops and slippery marble shooting vertically down a mountain is not the best combination. Luckily, we didn't break anything, and found ourselves at the bottom of Marble Mountain in the very spot where our bus was parked. Don't worry (like we did), the bus was right around the corner, and it was off and away to Hoi An.

It's like a totally important designer.

Always that foggy haze to obstruct our mountain views!
see all photos »

Oh man, I was definitely wrong when I got Hanoi and Hoi An confused on "the tailor capital of the world." Hoi An is a tiny little town nestled on the banks of the Thu Bon River, with a glorious(!) beach right on the South China Sea. There is a tailor shop every two feet you walk, so all there really is to do is shop and go to the beach. Get your fittings and then go frolic in the China Sea while you wait for them to make it. It's a hard life, but someone's gotta do it.

Marble Mountain, but we couldn't go into this cave.
see all photos »

We were a little timid at first with the tailors, not understanding how Kelly and Ryan could buy about 20 bags worth of clothes, but we were soon to realize what we were to become. If you come to Hoi An, you too will become a serial shopper. Kevin was talking in serious fashion terms by the end of it all. "Will this fabric go with this? That stitching totally doesn't mesh with the color. The lining is too loose, re-do it." Ha ha! It was classic. We spent most of our time at two places, Yaly Couture and A Dong Silk, probably the best two shops in town. A Dong Silk is great because their workers all get medical insurance and aren't worked like a sweat shop and Yaly Couture is simply the greatest quality we have seen. I showed my designer at Yaly a 2007 Fendi ("It's like a totally important designer" - Clueless)dress worth thousands of dollars, although I changed one of the fabrics from a black satin to dark brown leather as well as designed the back myself. It came out exactly like the runway picture. "Same same, but better." First, you pick out your fabric and design (they don't say "no" to any idea) and  get a fitting and then they tell you to come back either the next morning or later that night (depending on whether your first fitting is in the morning or later in the afternoon). Then, ba-da-bing, you have a beautiful creation fitted to a tee. Simple as that. Kevin bought about 10 suits (some were for friends) that fit him perfectly (with the same fabrics as Louis Vuitton and Gucci, which were obviously a little pricier, but still ridiculously cheap). I designed a few other dresses, jackets, a pair of boots and some sandals. I'm starting to get some ideas about starting up a little boutique where I fly to Hoi An and get my designs made. The tailor shops really like to do this and lots of buyers are designers in places like Los Angeles and New York.

Kevin in front of the cave where we wouldn't be entering.
see all photos »

It is amazing how hard these people in the tailor shops work. They are in the shops from sun-up to sundown. When we returned to Yaly on our last day to ship our items back to the states (I don't think all of those suits would fit in Kev's bag), one of the lady's asked us about A Dong Silk and what was different about their store. They don't even see what's going on in the other stores because they are in such fierce competition that they are constantly with customers or behind the sewing machine until all the stores close.

Holly in front of a massive Buddha. Yep, that pretty much explains it.
see all photos »

It was so fun to be one-on-one working with amazing designers and creators, but four nights here was definitely enough. You turn into a shopping zombie. All of sudden, you''ll find yourself with 20 shopping bags, still plotting your next design move. It's sick, but the morning Kevin and I were leaving, we were bummed because we wished we had bought some linen shirts!

Besides just the shopping, Hoi An is really a beautiful town. It's lined with chipped yellow colonial buildings and (as always in Vietnam) people shouting, "Motorbike you", necklace you, restaurant you," etc. We thought we had made friends with a sweet lady who owned a riverfront restaurant. She was so interested in us and talked to us for an hour and a half, before inviting us back to her home to meet her two children. We walked back to her little house, where she sat us down with her father, an ancient Vietnamese man curled up on a mattress on the floor, and proceeded to show us a photo album of her family. Then she brought out some chintzy little necklaces that "her son makes and sells to pay for school." By the way, her son and daughter whom we were supposed to be meeting were "at school." We threw the ridiculous price of $3 (for what should have been a 20 cent necklace) into her greedy little hand and got the heck out of there. Just when you think people aren't seeing you as a walking American dollar... Very disappointing, but we did still go back to her restaurant because the food was so good and cheap (the cao lau and white rose - native Hoi An dishes - were so delicious), although she had already forgotten who we were and tried to scam us again, "Oooh, where you from? You so beautiful."

Buddha carved out of marble.
see all photos »

An exhausting time in Hoi An, money well spent, and finally some relaxation on the beach (even if only for a day in between our busy fitting schedules), where we got some great Hoi An tans and spotted the same exact necklaces that the restaurant lady made us buy being sold by every lady on the beach. Boy, her son sure works hard making those little necklaces! This definitely won't be our last visit to Hoi An, we're already itching to go back.