Mar. 18 – Hue to Hoi An, Culture of shopping?

This morning, we drive three hours from Hue to Hoi An. Hoi An is a small, walkable town, with 80,000 inhabitants and who knows how many tourists, but there are a lot of us. Ma and I had been slated to do a cultural walk around town. Hoi An is the only surviving town from the country’s middle ages. This town, however, is also famous for its custom tailoring. You can get clothes, purses, shoes, rugs, seemingly whatever you want suited to your preferences for at least half the cost of what we would pay back home. Since we are here for only 24 hours, we ask our guide to make “Yaly” our first stop. Many back home recommended this place for custom tailoring. It is the biggest sop, with three stores in the small town. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, we are at this store for what seems like almost the entire 24 hours, with only a sprint through town to visit heritage sites and eat. We have to do many fittings before the clothes come out close to what we had imagined / hoped. With time constraints, we accept the third attempt to alter / perfect the clothing, then jump on a plane to head back to Saigon.