Tailored out

4/16/12:

Done and done. We finally completed our fashion extravaganza here in Hoi An. After all is said and done, we don't like everything we had made but the stuff we do like is awesome!

Here's a final breakdown:

Carolyn:
jacket - 1
casual dresses - 3
smart dress - 1
shirt - 1
shorts - 2
pants - 1
boots - 1
Flip flops - 1
sneakers - 1

Michael:
jacket - 1
Linen (short sleeve) shirt - 2
Long sleeve shirt - 1
Pants - 2
sneakers - 1
flip flops - 1

We initially set a budget for clothes and I only through sheer determination did we stay under by 20%!!!! Good job us! Actually we probably would have hit our budget if we'd liked everything.

Anyway, after a quick fitting this AM we made our way to another beach a but further away. It might as well have been 10 miles away. It seemed like it took forever to get there. It may have been the 147 degree heat and the giant buses zooming past us (smashing the horn of course) that made the journey seem so long. Coming to the beach we're greeted by several Vietnamese ladies on either side of the road yelling for us to park our bike in their yard. It was like riding the gauntlet, ladies yelling 'here, here, park here!!!' Anyway we parked and paid the going rate of 5000 dong per bike and walked over to the beach. A few more ladies started yelling from the beach asking if we'd like to sit in their chairs. We decided on a particular chair and were told if we ate at her restaurant the chair was free. No problem.

The beach was lovely, soft yellow sand, clear cool water and a decent breeze. The boss and I made our way into the water only to be greeted by the 2nd grossest creature on the planet ... Jellyfish (roaches being #1 of course and onions being #3). Giant ones. And they were stinging us. We were immediately not happy. Ohwell, back to the chairs.

We had fruit shakes, read a little and fought off the numerous locals trying to sell us random crap ... Everything from newspapers to tiger balm to chop sticks. We did buy a couple postcards and a coffee brewing thing. Anyway, we realized later that the whole 'eat at my restaurant an chair is free thing' wasn't a great idea. 2 fruit shakes and an order of spring rolls were 100,000 dong (about $5). This may not seem like much but it's a small fortune here. Ohwell.

Later back in Hoi An we had our final fitting, I got a crash course in the Vietnamese language (I can now say 5 phrases! I'm almost a local!!!!), we stocked up on snacks for our trip and I found the best tasting Dr Pepper I've had since San Diego!!!!!

We had dinner with our great new friends (Marisa and Carly) and said good bye, then upstairs to pack.

We're at the point where we need to repack for Italy and send unneeded things home. Our room looked like a plastic mess bomb exploded. After some serious organizational origami, we got our Italy packing sorted out and readied some things to ship home.

The rest of the night was spent booking our first 10 day in Italy. More in that in another post. Suffice it to say traveling in Italy is so far the complete opposite of how we like to travel. Planning every single day is so stressful and not fun that 2 nights ago we were wondering if Italy is a mistake. But we'll soldier on and take one for the team :)

Ok, bed time for us. Tomorrow we make our way to Hanoi. This trip is going to take 20 friggin hours! We leave Hoi An at 1300 and arrive in Hanoi the next morning at 0800. I'm going to be grumpy smurf.

Pics:
1) me with the tailor at Peace.
2) me enjoying the heavenly taste of Dr Pepper.
3) me with the tailor at Lana.
4) all of my clothes!!!!
5) is it hot out here or is it just me?????? Who is this minx??
6) we bought these silly pillows in Thailand for the slow boat trip and never used them. So after 2 months we're finally giving them a new home ... The garbagio!
7) An Bang Beach.
8) our view of An Bang Beach.

Happy Birthday to me!

Here's my clothes and shoes from Hoi An, some stuff is a hit some is a miss but it was fun. I needed my personal fashion consultant Marisa with me but I think she'll be proud of a couple of the pieces:

4 dresses
2 shorts
1 pair of pants
1 shirt
1 jacket
3 pairs of shoes

Sweating

Another day another fitting...or three or four. We went to our morning fittings and had more this afternoon. In between we planned for Italy and hung out by the pool. We are using Rick Steve's guide book and although its great I don't think it's the right book for us. He basically wants you to plan everything months in advance and that's not how we like to vacation. A layout is necessary but what fun is it if you can't have any randomness along the way? Our friends did the good ole American backpack through Europe not that long ago and we were astonished at their planning, every second down to restaurant choices was pre-planned, it worked for them but isn't our cup of tea. It gives me heartburn thinking that I have to know how long I want I be in a city before I even get there.

We met some girls at a fitting yesterday who are also staying at our hotel and they asked if we wanted to join them in a Vietnamese cooking class so we headed there after our last fitting of the day (our shoes are done!). It wasn't anything like the one in Thailand because we didn't actually do any of the cooking but it was still a grande time. Spring-rolls, aubergine clay pot and fried noodle was the menu and we left with full bellies and headed to a bar to chat with our new friends into the wee hours.

One thing we did a lot of today was sweat. I know in two weeks I'll be complaining that's it cold but right now it's hot hot hot!

Pics:
- Michael is wondering why he even bothered to shower
- Lady at tailor who is happy that we just put here kids through college
- Cooking class!

Who needs a tailor?

4/14/12:

Let's talk about Hoi An and what it's famous for. Picture yourself walking along a typical SE Asian street: 67 shops selling water, Oreos, train tickets and soap, 24 massage parlors, 7 motorbike repair shops and the occasional guest house. Now throw in 600 tailor shops and you have Hoi An!!! Of course the road is clogged with millions of scooters, cars, trucks and buses all mashing on their horns at the same time (can anyone say annoying?).

They're really are 600 plus tailor shops here in Hoi An. They all look the same (a smattering of men's suits, dresses, pants and shirts surrounded by stack after stack of fabric) and have very similar names. So how on earth do you select the tailor of your dreams out of this madness? We turned to some friendly advice, asked our hotel and snooped around before deciding on a place called Peace. The shop is nothing special and has the same selection as anywhere else but it was highly recommended so it was the winner.

We've ordered a few things so far and I suppose we're happy with everything but I can't help but use what I like to call the 'Old Navy Test' on the clothes here. It goes something like this: I look at a particular item to get tailored and them think to myself 'can I get this at Old Navy and for how much?' I use old navy because while the quality probably isn't runway model material, the clothes tend to last (for me anyway), look ok and are generally priced right. Tailored clothes on the other hand are supposedly top quality (this is doubtful since the sweatshop slaves making the clothes probably recently escaped the Vietnam branch of the Old Navy clothes factory), should fit perfectly (false, after multiple fittings we can both attest to this) and are a great deal (also false though this depends on where you go).

Anyway, using my Old Navy test was a bad idea since it resulted in me not wanting to get anything made and that's just not much fun. Part of the tailor thing is the experience. So I bit the bullet and had a few things made. Most dudes get a suit made here which probably is a great deal (think $100'ish for a full tailored suit) and some 'smart' clothes to go along with the suit. I'm a self described LL Bean man myself. This means I generally detest suits, anything called a 'slack' and those silk nooses called ties. My real middle name is 'Sweat' and for some reason anything you wear which most people call 'nice' or 'smart' tends to have an insulation rating which the US Dept of Energy normally gives out rebates for. So in other words I had a couple of linen shirts, a thin jacket and a pair of pants made. They're not amazing but the experience was cool so in the end its a win.

Carolyn on the other hand had a few more things made which all look AMAZING on her! A few missteps in the fittings and some misunderstandings with the tailors caused some issues but it's all working out and her clothes look great!

Today we had a couple fittings at Peace and a fitting for our shoes as well. I won't bore you about the shoes but suffice it to say getting clothes made is much better experience. However Carolyn may have finally found the holy grail: boots she actually likes :)

After our morning fittings we fiddled around our Italy guide book trying to get a handle on Italy (which is overwhelming and stressful!) and then grabbed a couple bicycles and headed for the beach. The beach is called Cau Dai and is only a 15 minute bike ride from our hotel. It was awfully beautiful but super windy. We saw loads and loads of locals sitting under trees, fully dressed complete with face mask. The beach itself was nice soft sand that stretched as far as you could see in either direction. The water was freezing though. Ok maybe not freezing, more like just below bath water which is freezing in SE Asia. So we braved the cold water and crashing waves, watched kite surfers and jet skiers and people watched the local Vietnamese swimming in full outfits (like jeans, button down shirts, face mask, dresses, etc).

Had dinner at a sweet little place in town and walked around the old quarter. Watched all the chaos of Vietnam and then made our way back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is probably going to be a pool day but we'll see.

Exciting note: we've been able to catch 3 (yes 3!!!!!) Yankees games so far this season. Our hotel gets ESPN which televised quite a few Yankees games .... WINNING!

Pics:
1) Carolyn's casual dress
2) Cau Dai beach
3) me with 16 million Dong! We're millionaires!!!!!
4) Carolyn's special dress.

Vietnamese storm trooper

4/14/12:

This lady came into the tailor shop we were at. I snapped this pic to show you what ALL the women look like here in Vietnam. Notice the complete lack of skin showing and keep in mind that it's 95 degrees out, clear sky and about 87% humidity.

The people here think the whiter your skin the more beautiful you are. Consequently everyone (well all the ladies at least) wear full face masks, hats, long sleeves and a jacket or hoodie and long pants. This is to keep them as white as possible. Also, most cosmetic products tout their whitening abilities. Crazy.

Crank pot

I had one of those day, if it can go wrong it do go wrong. Laundry wasn't done and I had sent in everything, iPod wasn't working, flights we looked at last night tripled over night. I ate a kit kat watched Zookeeper and pouted for a little while then we went to get pampered a bit. I got a pedicure which wasn't that great (a reoccuring theme in this country) but Michael went to get a hair cut and came out a changed man. Haircut, straight razor shave, nose trimming, back shave and head, back and chest massage for $11! He loved it!

After that we headed to our first fitting. Everything was fine with me, I'm not super happy with my pants but I told them to make them a little loose so that when I gain the weight I've lost back they will fit. Michael's clothes looked great. Finally a pair of pants that actually fit him! He got a jacket made but they only have girls zippers here so Michael will be wearing a ladies jacket by American standards. Since we were already in town we walked around and checked out the chaos that ensues when the kids get out of school and when the workday ends. Street venders pour out of back streets, boats arrive on the river to load up a million motorbikes and take workers home. The city comes to life. We also realized that the people here live well because this is the first time in SEA you see overweight locals and lots of them, especially little kids.

We ventured to a book store that we read about and met the American who owns it. He said his house has flooded 3 times in six years. They have many dams in the highlands that we passed on the way here, he said during monsoon season logs filled the dam, the government freaked out, opened the dams which flooded Hoi An and then didn't have enough water for the hydroelectric plants so the people went without power every other day for the entire summer! Apparently the government was unaware of the amount of illegal logging that was going on in the highlands that started the whole chain of events.

Had a second fitting and it was chaotic in the shop but it was good to see what other people ordered. Then we had a shoe fitting and we each got another pair of shoes. From there we had a cheap dinner since we spent all our money on clothes and shoes :)

Tomorrow after another fitting we are venturing to the beach!

Pics:
New boot phase 1
Michael getting a shave
Hoi An at night
Street seller who asked us to take her picture

From Buon Ma Thuot to Kon Tum

4/10
Here's what we did on day 3 of the Easy Rider tour. The pictures aren't in order because the mobile app put them in whatever order it wants.

1- drum maker! This guy isn't playing music, he's stretching out the hide .
2 - rice paper: it was so yummy and this nice woman let Michael mess up her perfect operation. She got some good laughs at Michaels lack of skills
3 - scrap metal house. They are still finding remnants of the Vietnam war. Michaels got some old bullets in his hand.
4 - mushroom factory. We personally hate mushrooms but this place was really cool. Take a plastic bag, fill it with rubber tree shavings and a little water, stick a piece of yam tree in the middle, close and place in covered room, wait 10 days, slash slots in plastic and wait for mushrooms.
5 - seriously the US needs to have hammocks at rest stops! The NJ turnpike could surely use some.
6 - pepper farm
7 - artillery from the scrap metal shop
8 - Random Norte Dame Cathedral
9 - dinner! Rice paper, some sort of leafy veggie and an omelet type thing all wrapped up in deliciousness
10 - rubber tree farm, the French showed them these and they are very thankful for it
11 - Michael got a third ear i.e. a huge white mushroom
12 - dinner