Hoi An

September 6-9

Our next three days in Vietnam were spent in Hoi An, a picturesque beach town in the central part of the country. Still battling colds, we spent this time enjoying delicious food, drinking Vietnamese coffees, biking to the beach, and relaxing in this cool town.

Plus we had some more clothes made and some leather shoes from Song Leather Shop! Here’s my final shoe fitting:

That’s right. I love them. We’ll let you know how the shoes hold up, but the process for custom made shoes is cool. They tape measured our feet and drew outlines to perfectly fit our feet. Even if they don’t hold up, they were cheap enough that it was worth the cost for the process. But I think they’re going to pull through!

A shot of a fitting of one of the dresses I had made:

I know the lemons are a bit much, but my grandma had a lemon and lime bag that I use to be obsessed with, so this fabric reminds me of her.

We did have one custom clothing mishap. The clothing shop, Ty Ha Na, makes pants jumpsuits. The pictures looked great, so I picked one out for them to make for me. I also chose this really great dark blue silky fabric. The next day I went back to try it on and realized that I had a custom made garbage man outfit.

These are the garbage people who were standing outside the shop while I was doing my fitting.

I cannot make this up. So, I tried to fix it by having them turn it into shorts instead of pants. It’s better, but still makes me think of an electrician or something. Hopefully with some heels and a necklace it will be ok. Haha.

The beaches were empty and gorgeous:

The street food was excellent:

This was Mike’s guy:

Suns out, guns out.

Plus the bars had live music that was really decent – Weezer, U2, Beatles, etc.

We also had great recommendations from Mike’s tour guide Muay for food in town.

The banh mi place ended up rocking our world. We went there two mornings in a row for breakfast banh mi.

Plus we grabbed some “other” banh mi on the beach one day. Can you have too much banh mi? I don’t think so.

We also found a great coffee shop that we hung out at a few times. You know I love having a coffee place that we can rely on.

One thing I want to mention is about the people and the heat in Vietnam and other Asian countries. I cannot understand how they survive. It is hot. Really hot. Michael and I are sweating nonstop, and yet somehow, everyone is dressed in long sleeves and pants.

Here is a picture of Michael at the post office.

It was so hot in there that at one point, he asked me to stand in line for him because he needed to sit down for a minute. It was nearly impossible to function in that room. And yet everyone else is in pants and sweats. They are layered up. What the heck! I have no idea how they don’t end up with heat stroke. I know that they cover up to avoid the sun, but take off the hoodie when you’re inside!

Wish our two small packages luck on their trip to the US. Michael filled out 3 different forms for each package with all of the same information. Not sure why the repetition, but hopefully that makes it more likely to arrive.

We loved Hoi An and would definitely recommend it to anyone. It was a beautiful, easy city to visit. Plus their lantern game is strong. I would imagine that our next trip to Southeast Asia definitely would include a few days in this city.