Hoi An

Hoi An harbor
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Ahhhh…..Hoi An. It’s a lovely city with beautiful French architecture and it is also a UNESCO world heritage site. The main attraction in this town however is the tailor shops. There are 200 or 300 depending on who you ask and having custom made clothing is a “must do”. There are basic shops to more expensive shops (relatively speaking). We thought we would join in just for the experience so I had a pair of linen slacks and a linen shirt made. Scott even had a nice pair of linen shorts made for him. All three pieces cost us only $45. Amazing. Measurements take about 30 seconds and the next morning the item is ready for a fitting – any adjustments are made and then you are good to go. Many in our group had coats, suits and even shoes custom tailored. If we could have stayed longer – it would have been great to set up a relationship with a tailor so that you could just make orders online as many of them do that and mail things regularly. If anything, I’m inspired now to take a more advanced sewing/tailoring class once I get back home so I can try my hand at it. Might be useful when we “live off the land” as we often joke about!!

Everyone loves a little rain during a bike ride!
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Beyond the clothes, the city is a culinary heaven! We tried more local fish cooked in banana leaf with lemongrass and ginger, prawns in a curry sauce and a wonderful banana leaf salad that is right at the top ranking thus far on my salad list. There were far too many restaurants for us to cover, but one night we took a cooking class at a small local restaurant which was great fun! We learned to make the fish in banana leaves, wontons with a sweet and sour topping, fried squid (another favorite). We absolutely loved all of it. It’s all about lemongrass, shallots, garlic, green onions and giner – yum!

Cyclo anyone???
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Our other bit of fun was to take a bike ride through the outskirts of the town. There are many new homes being built as tourism is building up the economy, but you still see the buffalos being used to work in the fields and we also got to see some shrimp farms along the way as well. A great day.

We will miss Hoi An and wished we could have stayed a little longer, but now we’ll move on to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).