The Plan B Adventure

We met Vy and her gang of hard-selling travel agents in Nha Trang after a four hour jaunt by bus left us on their doorstep. We thought we were catching a night train to Danang which is 30km from our final destination Hoi An BUT the night train was sold out. It seems we’ve avoided all the masses of Western tourists all to run into all the Vietnamese tourists. Oh well, there are worse things (like working at Harris) than having to spend a day in a sunny beachside community on the Vietnamese coast. We chose to spend a night and next day in the scuba capital of Nha Trang, Vietnam. As most of you know neither of us are avid scuba divers so we opted for more relaxation during our mini-adventure…….the local mud baths and mineral spa!!! The Thap Ba Hot Spring Spa was a great choice. For a little less than $10 a person we showered in warm mineral water, bathed in eucalyptus-scented mineral mud, laid in the sun for the full effect of the mud power washed with steaming mineral water, and re-hydrated under a warm mineral waterfall.  This type of treatment was exactly what we needed before our overnight train ride to Hoi An (via Danang) and the rigors of our upcoming shopping frenzy. Arriving in Danang after a less than enjoyable, yet satisfactory train ride we jumped off the train and split a 30km cab ride to Hoi An with some Kiwis. Danang, as many of you may know, is infamous for being the first public place American military forces made camp during the war as well as being in the immediate vicinty of the ever-popular China Beach. We decided to skip through the town and head to Hoi An for a different experience entirely.

Hoi An, Vietnam is located on the South China Sea and was an early port for Portuguese, Spanish and French traders and Christian missionaries. As you walk through the cobblestone, boutique-lined streets (if you can avoid the obvious commercialism) you get a warm feeling of what must have attracted the early merchants, as well as, Alexandre de Rhodes (father of the Vietnamese language) to this part of the country. We found the hotel we had reserved but its quaintness was far surpassed by its proximity (across the street) to the morning market. Now we are all for staying in family-run bed and breakfast type establishments but a 5AM wakeup call to the smells of the local fish run and chicken slaughtering is not our idea of a comforting alarm clock. Instead, we high-tailed in down one of the major streets to the Vinh Hung 2 Hotel, home of Michael Caine while he filmed “The Quiet American”. Quaint place with a very helpful staff and a great breakfast buffet. The hotel was conveniently located only a short walk from A Dong Silk, the tailor recommended to us from our favorite Canadian referrers, Tanya and Jeff.

Opposed to jumping head-first into a full blown tailor experience we decided to get a lay of the land and took a short jaunt around Hoi An and its neighboring islands. We had great fun peeking into the boutiques (can’t go in or you ask for the full-court Sales press), looking at the local art work, and enjoying a quiet bamboo boat stroll on the local river courtesy of a local fisherwoman. It was nice and relaxing and a good way to get ready for the game show that is “Let’s Make a Deal – Hoi An Edition”.

Okay….enough talking let’s get to some good ol’ shopping. As you all know this is something Becca enjoys and Jeff loves so we were ready to take it all in!!! We had been recommended to A Dong Silk by our fellow Canadian travellers and had also been recommended HOA, a small, family-run tailor shop by Allyson (of previous mention in many blog entries). You often hear stories of $20 custom suits and $3 dress shirts as you travel towards Hoi An. This is a bit of traveller’s mystique (adjusting the price down in their heads to ease the impact of how much they actually spent) and a bit of lesser customer service. After hearing of other’s experiences (don’t go to the Cloth Market shops) we are sure glad to have paid a bit more for the high quality and customer service of A Dong Silk and HOA. We reviewed both of the shops fabric choices and decided A Dong (although a bit more expensive) had many of the fabrics we wanted for suits and jackets and HOA had many of the styles we liked in shirts and silk fabrics for other items, which will remain nameless as they are gifts.  

The experiences at both shops were very different we will focus on A Dong Silk, the most entertaining. Entering the store in itself is a fascinating experience. Each of us was appropriated a specific saleswoman and immediately questioned about what styles and fabrics we desired. As many of you can imagine these are some of the best sales people in Southeast Asia and Jeff relished the opportunity to match wits and negotiating techniques. (Andrew…you would love this!!!) We decided to focus on Becca first as she is most likely to continue down the professional (Sorry, Dad Z!) career path. As you can expect she came prepared with cut-outs from magazines, internet printoffs of designs and a listed inventory of what she needed. Jeff was a little less organized and was really just looking to get one suit and a few shirts. Needless to say…..that didn’t happen!!! Once you explain what you want each saleswoman whips out her sketchpad and draws a damn good sketching of the design you just described. Amazing!! After the sketches are drawn, the fabric search (and the negotiating dance) begins.  The fabrics are endless….silks, cashmeres, German cottons, Italian blends….the list and designs go on and on. Once you are done with fabrics, it’s time for measurements. This entails a fury of small woman taking your sizes and bantering in Vietnamese….very funny actually!

AND YOU ARE DONE…….unless “you want someteen else?” Well, of course!!! For a shirt at $10-$20, blazers for $20 and suits @ $40-$80, we want fifty more but you gotta draw the line somewhere. Well….maybe a few more. OK, now we are done.

Let the negotiating begin. Everything is negotiable in Hoi An and no one (although many do) should ever pay full price let alone anything above a 30% discount. For any of you that don’t like to negotiate, Jeff is happy to join you just for the price of a flight (1st Class, of course) to Hoi An. After three fittings and two trips (while they worked on adjustments) to the beach everything fit perfect and was boxed up to be shipped to the States…arrival in late June!!! We know this is dragging (we are more than happy to relay more info on the rest of Hoi An) on so here is a quick inventory.

Becca – 3 Suits, 1 Dress, 2 Skirts, 5 Dress Shirts, 3 Tank Tops, 2 Pants, 1 Jacket, 5 Belts, 1 Leather Sandals, and a Sleep Mask  

Jeff – 3 Suits, 5 Dress Shirts, 1 Shorts, 2 Blazers, 1 Leather Sandals

All for just around $700. Not bad for a few days work!!! See you in Hanoi.

Tags: Hoi An, Nha Trang, Shopping, Travel, Vietnam

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 26th, 2006 at 4:49 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.