The tailors of Hoi An

Hoi An is spectacular, this was definitely the highlight of our trip in Vietnam and one of our best times of our trip so far. Hoi An is renowned for its tailoring and the streets are dotted with shops stocked with mannequins sporting suits, dressed, shirts, coats and whatever else you can wish to see on a Milan catwalk.

Celia and I stayed in this fantastic hotel that was offered to us by chance for a measly $12/n with a room that had a balcony overlooking the pool, DSTV (no lies) and Internet. We also had a great recommendation for a tailor so we were set. I had absoluterly no idea what i wanted but i knew i needed a suit for Rick and Tess' wedding in Auckland, in Feb. So Celia was sitting in the tailors shop, a short camp Vietnamese man with a penchant for bad courdoroy suits from the 60's. He knew his stuff though and although he never had much on show, he worked on reputation.

So i was off scouting for ideas because i drew a blank when asked what kind of suit i wanted, i eventually found a Prada & Gucci catalog and asked Mr Xe to make the suit accordingly, while i was at it, i had a second one made as well as two shirts and a lens cover for my tele lens.

Celia was like a kid in a candy store and before i knew it has ordered a pants suit, skirt suit, two stunning dresses, a skirt and two blouses.

Now all these clothes were ready for first fitting in a day, unbelievable.. Some of them fitted perfectly, but i had a few changes to made to the suits and shirts. So we hired some bicycles to see more of the town in a shorter space of time. Well I cycled to work every for about 3 years in London, so i never forgot how, but Celia reckons she has not ridden a bike since school, so it was a treat watching her get accustomed to the whole experience again.

Now whenever i am on a bicycle whether its cycling to work in the pouring London rain, or in the baking sun in Vietnam i have to win and whichever cyclist i see ahead of me will be watching my back tyre sooner or later. So when Celia passed me when i got off to adjust my saddle it was game on. She was almost half a km ahead when i got on again so i was in for some tough pedalling. Another thing i have to tell you is that i always pretend i am in the Tour de France when cycling, its like a stage every time i get on the bike so in this stage i was way down and slipping back in the General Classification. I had to treat this like a time trial and gradually pedal my was back up to Celias wheel. She was a bit confused as to why i was wheezing when i arrived at the beach but in my mind i had just won the stage and the yellow jersey for the day.

The beach in Hoi An was a prize on its own and we spent the afternoon there eating sea food and drinking the local grog before we had to saddle up again for another epic stage back into town