Hoi An Adventures - chapter 1

Half term arrived yesterday after a very productive paperwork day at school. With primary reports completed and most of the planning for the first week back finished. I left school feeling excited about my first real Vietnamese adventure.

Last night I flew to Da Nang, where I was met by a driver from my hotel and taken to Hoi An.

When I arrived I wasn't immediately pleased with my hotel room as there were centipedes in the bath; the air con is temperamental and I also wanted it all to be perfect. Today I've decided that it has a faded charm; the bed is comfy and the staff very friendly. I've also thought (and not for the first time) that I must stop comparing the prices of hotels to what I could get in Ecuador.

Today has been a crazy mad day! I've wandered round the streets taking pictures and been enticed into many shops. Hoi An's streets are crammed with tailors and shoe makers. Fi heaven - shops and photography!

I decided to take a wander round the fabric market, and was followed by a beautifully dressed older Vietnamese lady asking me if I'd like a manicure or pedicure? the price quoted was amazingly cheap so I accepted, but only after I'd finished looking around. Every stall holder wanted me to look at their materials and buy clothes from them! Another lady invited me to her shoe shop and I have to admit that here I got quite carried away and ended up ordering 4 pairs of shoes, which will apparently be ready tomorrow - amazing!

Whilst chatting and laughing with Ms Thanh, Madame Mai (my manicurist) waited nearby, she also joined in with our jokes and smiles. Miss Thinh also waited, hoping I'd buy some clothes from her!

Madame Mai whisked me away to her stall in the Market as soon as she could. Before I knew it not only was I getting a pedicure, but my eyebrows were being threaded, followed by my legs and parts of myself I don't consider very hairy were being examined critically by Mme Mai's discerning eye!

A team of four women worked to make me 'beautiful', assuring me that there is no gain without pain and that I would now find many boyfriends. I really liked all these women, with their humour! Because I liked them and was enjoying the attention, I kept agreeing to more things. Naively I didn't ask a price as I went along, so the final bill was a bit of a shock. Yet I did have a marvellous time. Also, hilariously, a couple of the women had a quick feel of my boobs - I laughed a lot!

Miss Thinh kept coming back to make sure I was coming to her stall afterwards. I couldn't refuse.

Back in the fabric market I waded through many catalogues and picked out some items that I liked, this took ages. I was getting increasingly more tired and wanting to escape! When it came to choosing fabrics I only found a few that I liked. I was getting increasingly more worried about committing to some clothes after already spending quite a bit on shoes and pampering. Also at the back of my mind was the fact that I hadn't followed any of the guidance given by friends or guidebooks about which tailor to go to. I finallly agreed on a pair of trousers with matching waistcoat and a silk dress. I have a fitting tomorrow, so will find out if I chose well then I guess.

After all the excitement I was exhausted so had some food and came back to the hotel to chill.

Poking me will not encourage me to buy clothes from you...

Neither will handing me an XXL and telling me it's my size!

Personal space is an interesting issue here, especially when in markets. Today I ventured to Saigon Square, a sort of indoor clothes and accessories market with the other Fiona. I found I really didn't like people poking and prodding me as I tried a few tops on...I asked one lady to stop and she didn't take the hint at first, so I politely repeated, "Please stop touching me."

Another example of lack of personal space was when I was buying fruit and veg in a local supermarket. You have to have all items weighed and Vietnamese ladies were literally pushing me out of the way so they could have theirs weighed first!

Solutions to the problem:

1. Buy fruit and veg from Organikvn, an online shop. Then a nice man delivers fab veg to your door, no poking required.
2. Buy clothes in more expensive places where I am a medium and again was not poked.
3. Have clothes custom made. Take things you already own to be copied, therefore no poking or measuring required.

7 weeks in...

Life continues to have ups and downs, luckily this week has been better than the one before. 

I hit the extreme exhaustion wall last week and was being very sensitive to other people's words and actions. It didn't help that I was running a few mins late on the Thursday morning and the bus didn't wait for me. Luckily through all this the kids were great and it reminded me of the fact that I do what I do because of them!

Last weekend I went on a major shopping and pampering spree - this cheered me up no end! I also went out on Friday and Saturday night with people from work which was really good fun.

This week I've still been knackered but have gone through the tearfulness to bizarre sense of humour land (phew!). I also gave myself a pep talk and decided I must stop being such a sensitive little flower.

Today I've hopefully found my tame tailor and will have two new pairs of trousers and a top in 10 days time!

First adventure away from Ho Chi Minh City

Two weekends ago I had my first trip away. A small group of us escaped from school on Friday afternoon and headed to catch the hovercraft to Vung Tau, From there the plan was to continue to Long Hai, where we'd booked accommodation. We arrived in darkness to what looked like a fairly swanky hotel. We decided we'd like rooms by the beach and this was when it all started to turn a little strange. We were transported on a large golf buggy type thing down a very dark road and then had to wait ages for someone to come and open the gate. One of the crew started to look at the geckos and she almost fell off the buggy as it started to move as she was getting back on. Everything was in darkness. We stopped outside some villas and went to inspect the rooms - we were not impressed. We asked to be taken back to the main hotel to look at some rooms there and still were not impressed. I couldn't help but compare them to Ecuador where I stayed in beautiful places for around $15. This place expected us to pay $60 a night for a room that was even close to the standard I knew from Ecuador. We tried to reason with the receptionist to drop the price, but she was unable to help us. We ordered some cold beers and a taxi and waited to head back to Vung Tau - the taxi took forever.

Luckily we were all fairly chilled about it...I did go rather quiet but that was because I was needing food.

Vung Tau has a fairly seedy reputation - it is where Gary Glitter was caught! We eventually got to the Sammy Hotel and asked to see the rooms before deciding whether to stay. The boys sat down to wait whilst us girlies went to inspect. We got out of the lift to a floor in total darkness - there were a few comments about the fact we seemed to have found ourselves in an episode of Fawlty Towers! We looked down a dark corridor and saw electric cables hanging down and very obvious signs of work...oh dear we thought! We were extremely relieved when we were then shown rooms on the floor below which were very nice - hurray!

We checked in and headed out to find food as by now it was nearly 10.00pm. Luckily there was a beach bar across the road who said they could order us pizzas, I proceeded to order a rum and coke.

Most of the next day was spent chilling on the beach and swimming in the beautifully warm sea - splendid. We had ice creams to make it feel even more like a holiday. 

In the afternoon, Fiona (yes there is more than one Fiona here - weird!) and I went to have a massage back at the hotel. This was another strange experience. We had to pay up front which I've never experienced before and were then shown to a room. We sat and waited. A lady came in and gave me two towels and indicated that we were to strip off. I've also never had a massage where the lady is in the room while you disrobe. The massage began, with no oil. It was also quite disconcerting that the two ladies kept giggling and chatting. I could recognise some of the techniques being used but found it all very strange - with hindsight we should have stopped them and asked for our money back. At the end my lady very rudely asked for a tip - again after not leaving the room while we got dressed. I refused and we scarpered as quickly as poss discussing how weird it had all been!

In the evening we had delicious local food on the beach and went back to drink more cocktails at the beach bar. I hadn't expected a late one, but before we knew it it was 3am and I was dozing off on the sofa!

I loved the beach at night, it really came to life with street food sellers, bonfires, joss sticks burning - it was fascinating and was one of those 'I'm in a different country' moments.

The next day I was fairly fragile and we did very little until it was time to get the boat back to Ho Chi Minh. Unfortunately my ticket for the boat had got wet and was falling apart - they wouldn't accept it and a man was shouting at me in Vietnamese. My friend Carolyn tried to talk to him (she's been here for six years and speaks Vietnamese really well), but that made him even more angry. So I had to run in the pouring rain to get another one - fairly horrible experience.

Once on the boat we all crashed out and in less than two hours we were back in HCMC, where we got shouted at again, this time by a taxi driver. He wanted us to use his more expensive taxi and was trying to make us get out of the one we were in - again a fairly frightening experience. 

Although being shouted at in a language I don't understand was scary and intimidating, it has not put me off Vietnam. I'm looking forward to more adventures, half term is in three weeks time and I'm going to head to Hoi An.