Hoi An

Hello from romantic Hoi An! We are now halfway up Vietnam's coast and love the cooler temperature, exquisite architecture, relaxed atmosphere, pastry cafes, and tailor shops. We've been exploring the narrow streets on rickety old bicycles that are free at our guesthouse. It is a beautiful, clean city and is exactly how one might imagine old Vietnam, minus the millions of motorbikes (nothing, however, compared to the madness that was Saigon traffic....an impenetrable wall of motorbikes). The entire downtown is a Unesco World Heritage Site because of the amazing architecture, and it really feels like a step back in time. At night the trees and restaurants along the Phuoc An River are lit up with lanterns and everything is an amber glow.

This is probably the best place in the world to get cheap custom made clothing, and there are tons of different tailor shops to choose from. We weren't planning on getting anything made, as it seemed incredibly frivolous on a backpacker budget, but we couldn't help ourselves and took the plunge! And are so glad we did. So we better get out of here before we blow our "Turkish rug" allowance!

The first tailor shop we visited was good, but not the highest quality (we had a couple of coats made) so after some online research we discovered Yaly. This is the only place worth visiting. They are more expensive but are super professional, the tailors are incredible, and a much larger selection of fabric. It's worth the extra in price. They can basically copy almost anything you like from a photograph (they have millions of look-books...super overwhelming!) and fit it perfectly to your body. We were a bit skeptical at first about how things would turn out, especially a suit, but Jon got an amazing grey cashmere/silk 3-piece suit, and it looks incredible. He was very pleased, and he is very particular about clothing. So I have been scouring the internet for images of dresses, and am very excited to see how they turn out! It's so hard to make a choice without ever trying it on because once they start cutting that fabric it's yours! So I stuck with classic silhouettes, which are rather hard to find at a decent price anyway- especially something that fits so well. We go in for another fitting tomorrow, so I will post some pictures of the outcome.

We hope you all are well and warm....