I had asked a fellow traveler if I would have a hard time finding a tailor in Hoi An when we arrived...she just laughed and assured me that they would find me. She could not have been more right.

Our 16 hour overnight train ride from Saigon was a success. We had a little room with four beds in it, so it was us and 2 Vietnamese travelers. One of them was a young woman who spoke great English who helped to translate the announcements that seemed to come on just as I was falling asleep.

We took a mini-bus into the city from the train station in Danang and just as we approached the town the driver stopped and let a woman into the bus. She turned around and started talking to us in English, after a moment of small talk she asked us if we were planning to have clothes made while in Hoi An, because she just happened to have a tailor shop!! How funny, they really had found us.
We spent the better part of a half of a day wandering in and out of tailor shops, which are lined up on every main street in town, one after another. They all seemed to know the same phrases in English to get us into their store, and all assured us that they had good quality clothes for a cheep price. We finally settled on a tailor who we liked, and coincidentally had the same name as me, Leesa!

Now imagine, if you can, living out of a backpack and having one or two outfits at any given time...this was paradise, cheep, perfectly fitted clothes. We welcomed anything that fit differently than our travel pants and quick dry shirts. And so we were off, I chose fabric and a style for a shirt to be made and before she was finished measuring me for it, she was trying to sell me a skirt to match, and a suit for Jim...all said and done, we spent 3 days coming in and out of her shop, being persuaded to get one last thing made up until hours before we intended to go to the post office to ship it home.

I even ran into a tailor shop 45 minutes before we had to ship the box home, because I had wanted to have something made for a friend and had forgotten...they made exactly what I wanted...custom fitted...in 45 MINUTES...AMAZING!

Most of the cities in Vietnam seem to have a sort of central PA system, in the mornings and in the evenings they bark out news or propaganda (not really sure what) for a good hour, then pipe out music for another hour or so. One quiet evening in Hoi An, I was doing a bit of shopping (Jim was sick of it, so he was off doing his own thing) and suddenly the announcements ended and the music started playing...oddly, it was music in English and the song was Hero. Here I was walking down a little cobble-stone street in an adorable town in central Vietnam, the shops were lit up, people were sitting on the stoops of their stores playing games, drinking tea and watching the world go by. The moon was full and I could smell the ocean in the air...I felt like I was in a movie.
We rented bikes the next day and biked the 5Km to the beach. It was a beautiful white sand beach, where you can rent chairs for .50 cents for the entire day and women and children come by every 20 minutes to sell you pineapple, candy, and coconuts. Jim was taken by one of the pineapple sales-woman who sat down next to us. Her first attempts to sell us pineapple were answered with a NO...however, she started coming out with English phrases like, 'Don't turn these brown eyes blue!', and 'Please open your hearts and your wallet'...we couldn't resist, and watched as she expertly cut up the fresh juicy pineapple...yum.

Lisa with a pair of new pants and Leesa, our tailor!