Luke Nguyen's Vietnam Food Tour: Day 6, daytime
Time to hit the road, so we climbed on the bus for the road trip to Hoi An. Hoi An is truly a magical place, a charming town of small shops and restaurants, known for the many colorful paper lanterns that hang everywhere and for the historic timber merchant houses, now occupied by tiny shops. You won't find a chain store or fast-food restaurant here. It's all small, family-owned enterprises. There's a good reason that it's a UNESCO World Heritage site.
As you wander around the old part of town, past beautiful Japanese houses and Chinese temples, you could imagine that it's a century ago. (Except for the hordes of tourists and occasional motorbikes buzzing past. At least cars are banned in this area.) I guarantee you'll snap hundreds of photos while you're here.
Hoi An is also a shopping heaven. Want a pair of custom-made shoes? Many of the little shops will measure you and make a pair overnight. How about your favorite shirts or pants? Bring them to a shop, and they will make exact copies. Inexpensively and overnight.
Our guide recommended a shop called Yaly Couture at 47 Nguyen Thai Hoc. They have three shops in town. We were greeted by one of a dozen or so salespeople, who paid close attention to what Sue wanted to make. She measured her, helped pick the perfect fabric, and explained that they would make the clothes overnight and bring them to our hotel for a final fitting the next morning.
The store was teeming with customers, so I don't know how they turned out all these clothes overnight, every night, but they did ours, and they were perfect.
Later, we saw a charming little storefront packed with beautiful local pottery. We couldn't resist buying a ton of plates and bowls, and then wondered how the heck we were going to pack these into our already overflowing suitcase.
“No problem,” said the owner, who made a phone call, and ten minutes later, two young women turned up on a motorbike with a scale and shipping forms. Problem solved. They promised we'd receive them when we got home (and yes, the day after we arrived, the package was delivered).
There are so many great-looking restaurants in town, but we opted for our favorite old standby, Morning Glory. There are actually four of them in Hoi An.
Sadly, a drama unfolded while we were in town. It was raining, and one of our fellow travelers slipped and fell, breaking some bones (I was too squeamish to ask which ones).
Tourists to the rescue! A couple of Australians got her to the nearest hospital, where they diagnosed the damage, and she and her husband, with the help of their travel insurance company, got them back to Sydney for surgery. You know, I'm a cheap bastard when it comes to travel insurance (among other things), but this taught me a lesson. Buy it!
Ironically, I was telling a friend when I got home about the accident, and she said that a few years earlier, when she was in Hoi An, a friend of hers broke her arm there, and the local hospital turned out to be incredibly good and fixed her up in no time. That's a traveler's dilemma: how do you know if the local medical care is up to par?
We were pretty tired after a rainy day of eating, walking, and shopping, but we were in for a huge treat that evening. Tune in to the next post for details. (Okay, that's a sorry attempt at a cliff hanger.)