So long Hoi An
Trip Start
Nov 21, 2007
1
10
12
Trip End
Ongoing
Hoi An, Vietnam
Saturday, December 15, 2007
After breakfast we almost ran down the street to check on our orders from the tailors. First stop Asia, which was recommended by the Hotel. My dress had done a 180 and was almost looking wearable. So after a second flurry of helpers measuring, pulling and needling me we agreed to come back in an hour to check it again. Then off to the other tailors to check on Crystal's coat, my suit and some other trousers and things. This tailor was a vast improvement. It's TH!NH CUONG (with some extra accents and commas in there). The girls seem to have a few companies working for them and were couriering everything from the factory to the shop in about 5 minutes. The clothes were almost ready just needing some tweaking and approving by ourselves. So we left them for another bit and went off to collect my new green dress. Success. I'd recommend that anyone coming to the tailors here try on an already made piece so you get a good idea of the result.
We then strolled down to the docks/market area in the sunshine and went to the Blue Dragon again for lunch. 35000 VND for Shrimp and veg fried noodle with rice and mineral water. About 1.50EUR. We strolled back up and picked up all but Crystal's jacket then on to collect our laundry for 10kVND and back to hotel to write this. We leave on the 5.30pm bus to Nha Trang, which incidentally is famous for it's spa treatments so I think I like it already...
Bus people were about as kind as a smack in the face. We were on the waiting list for a sleeper bus and the seated bus arrived. We tried to ask if there was any room on the sleeper but the nice man nearly drove off on us! So we got on the bus to go to the Camel office and figure out if there were any spaces left. Unfortunatly two Swedish girls got there first and they scored the last two sleeper seats. But the nightmare was only beginning.
We met two Australians on the bus that we had met previously. They had the same story about having expensive sleeper tickets and being unable to use them. So we all retained our tickets so we could complain later on. This didn't go down too well with the nice bus man who ripped the ticket out of one of their books. Eventually one of their representatives from the office came out to take our ticket numbers and then left us to our doom. The bus seemed to swerve from lane to lane but this was no surprise as that's how they drive here. There were so many near misses we just started laughing. The driver didn't stop blowing the horn all night. I thnk it may have been to keep him awake. We stopped at 11 and were supposed to stop at 10 for a toilet break. We'd been waved past the stopping point as there was something going on and there were a few million motorbikes and people outside the station. The bus broke down after our 1am stop leaving us landed in the middle of the road. They got it going again but it broke down twice more before the night was over. I didn't sleep a wink and there was some poor old man in front of me who must have smoked everyday of his long life and smelled as much. So I was in heaven. I was sat patiently waiting for a rat or cockroach to make my night complete. But it never happned. I had survived another night in Vietnam.
