Hoi An, Vietnam, 8-10 July 2012

On arrival in Hanoi from Halong Bay, Jo, Liv, Jen and I met up for some grub before the nightbus to take us straight to Hoi An. The bus was obviously overbooked, and after a few people who had settled themselves in were removed as they were put on the wrong bus, we 4 took the last remaining beds. Jen at the back on a bank of 4, Jo and Liv on some singles, and me on a bank of 3 against the window next to an Aussie couple. 18 hours later, and after a coffee stop in Hue for an hour to change buses, we arrived in Hoi An. We were greeted to beautiful sunshine and clear skies and a free minibus to take us into the centre. Liv departed to take a motoman to her hotel that was already booked to meet her friends. The first hotel we tried was in our budget and got us a very nice triple room, so no buggering about required (it even had a pool!). Jos friend Izzy and her boyfriend Ross were also in Hoi An at the time, and we arranged to meet up with them. We found their hotel around the corner from ours, had a couple of drinks together, and then they had a second fitting at their tailor. Instead of wandering off, we went with them to check it out and I immediately found myself being "measured" by a very friendly woman. The "measuring" seemed to consist of fondling, squeezing, and pinching of unmentionables to the tune of "big banana", "ooh, big strong man" and other phrases that I would not have expected my girlfriend to laugh at (I'm sure she wouldn't if it were a barmaid or something, but as it was a tailor it was ok apparently). I had a look at the stuff Ross had had made and was really impressed. You obviously have to choose the higher quality fabrics to make it worth getting made which pushes the price up, but even shopping on the most expensive rail and with silk lining, and two double-cuff shirts of REALLY nice material, my lot came to $190 (just under £120). Jo saw Izzy in her suit, and couldn't resist getting a very nice evening jacket made up too, though as she was only getting a jacket made she didn't get flossed with the tape measure like I did! Izzy and Ross were happy with their stuff and we all headed out for drinks again by the river. Hoi An is stunning, and the Old Town is even better viewed from the outside, so we sat drinking the local fresh beer which is about 400-450ml and 10-15p. To my surprise and great happiness Jo liked it too and began to develop a taste for beer! Her argument for it is that it's just as refreshing as water and about 1/5th the price! That night we all met up again together, this time all 9 of us. We had a couple of drinks, found a little place still doing food, then back to the bar for more drinks and watch Murray lose the Wimbledon Mens Final. Next day we mooched around looking at all of the French colonial architecture, brightly coloured boats and various temples. Before long we were back on the Fresh Beer by the river again. On the walk back Jo and I ended up in another tailors somehow. With the help of dozens of clothes catalogues and a laptop, we both had ourselves measured up for a winter coat each. Izzy and Ross had now moved on North to Hanoi, so it was 'just' the 7 of us for dinner that night. We eventually found somewhere which everyone was happy on, then wandered off in search of a late-opening bar. It was dead when we got there, so we took over the pool table and Jo took over as DJ. We got back to the room pretty late, but there seemed to be a party going on in the room next to us. Only 5 mins after we got in an angry little Vietnamese man was banging on their door, and about 20 people piled out. Our last morning was not to be a lie-in. We decided to go on the My Son trip which is a group of temple ruins about 50km out of the city. The ruins date back to 7th Century, but a lot were destroyed by the US in the 70's as they had no clue where the Viet Cong were, so they just bombed, burned and gassed EVERYTHING. We saw some lovely ruins and quite a few bomb craters but sadly our "English speaking guide" spoke some dialect of English that I'd definitely never heard of, so we wandered off by ourselves. That afternoon we did some final sightseeing in the Old Town, had our final fittings and picked up our new suits/jackets/shirts/coats, and a bit of a swim before boarding the bus to Nha Trang, this time with all 7 of us on board!