Hoi An is Awesome

Hoi An was my favorite place we visited so far.  The city is absolutely beautiful.  The government regulates the buildings in "old town" such that they all are yellow and covered in lanterns and flowers.  The river along the side of town has beautiful bridges and boats lining it.

Hoi An River Market

Temple

Rice Field in the middle of town

Japanese Bridge

Lantern Bridge

Boats

We decided to splurge and stay at a very well reviewed hotel.  It was the nicest place we stayed so far, and it got a whopping $30 a night which included a HUGE all-you-can-eat breakfast in the morning.  The breakfast was seriously big enough that I ended up just having a snack for lunch most days.

This is what flashpacking looks like

Hoi An has become famous for it's tailors (there are over 200 in this small town).  Many tourists come here to have custom-made and tailored clothing.  I was particularly looking forward to this part of the trip because I've basically not bought any nice clothes for the duration of grad school.  Crossroads has been my best friend.

I wrote a separate post about how to go about clothes shopping in Hoi An -- because I think it would be useful to other travelers to have a stand-alone post with advice.  But, I will say that we found a tailor we absolutely loved, and she made both of us a lot of awesome clothes.   I'm excited to get home to wear my new outfits... too bad my boss will probably fire me on the spot if I ever show up to work in a suit.

Other than shopping we did two excellent tours.  The first tour was to see the Cham temples at My Son.  The temples themselves were pretty cool, but the best part of the day was riding through the small villages to get there.  Getting off the beaten track in Vietnam is pretty amazing.  The adults just seems really curious about you and the kids are super excited to have a chance to practice their English.  No one is begging or seems needy in anyway (even though they have very little in these villages).  They mostly just seem to be very happy people who are genuinely interested in the novelty of someone new in their town.  As we rode past little kids, lots of them, would run out into the streets screening "Hello" and waving at us.  Some who were already out would put out their hands to give us a "high-five."  As we stopped at looked at various things, people would come out of their houses or stop the farming they were doing and look at us with amusement, and if we said hello or smiled their faces would light up and they would smile back.

Our tour guide came from a biker family in the north of England.  He was super enthusiastic about his job and about the tour, and very knowledgeable about Vietnamese culture and history. It was nice to talk to a westerner who had recently immigrated to Vietnam (he has been living here for four months).  He had a pretty fresh perspective on things and was able to tell us a lot about the culture that perhaps a native wouldn't feel comfortable, or think to share.

For instance, I asked him why we often see Vietnamese women with (as in dating) western men, but not the other way around.  This was his response.  I want to say in advance, that this response sounds exaggerated and very sexist to me, but this was his perception of the situation:

"Vietnamese women would rather date western men, because Vietnamese men are not (in general) very nice to date.  This is also why western women tend to not date Vietnamese men.  Vietnam has been at at war for centuries, in fact currently the Vietnamese are in the longest period of peace ever in their history (20 years).  So there is a long tradition of the men being soldiers.  The general mindset is that because men need to be ready to fight at any time (and if they go to war they will be risking their lives and having a very traumatic experience), then when men are not at war they should enjoy themselves.  So many men spend most of their time relaxing, drinking, watching TV, and hanging out with their friends.  The men are supported by their mothers until they marry, and then they are supported by their wives.  On the other hand, women are expected to be the primary bread-winners in the family, as well as take care of the house and children (and everyone must have children).  Therefore, a lot of the new generation of Vietnamese women are starting to get wise to the fact that they are getting a bum deal here, and are thus trying to find men who will pull their weight.  These men are usually not Vietnamese"

I suspect that this is a large exaggeration... however it is true that most of our interactions with people (especially in the north) are with women.  Women run shops, waitress in restaurants, run hotels, lead tours.  We also see women doing physical labor like working in the fields and farming.  In fact the only consistent place that I see men being the primary workers is driving taxis / motorbikes.

Now there are many men who are working.  Our current hotel has a heavily male staff, and we have had some lovely male tour guides.  But according to what I've read online, women to make up more of the work-force here than men.  And women seem to be considered the primarily care-givers and house-keepers.

People here also work incredibly long hours and usually only get 1 day (if any) off a week.  One of our tour guides says she gets 3 days off a month.  Yet many people seem to love their jobs, and be happy to work all the time.  The mat weaver in the picture below is 85.  She has the option to retire, but she says she'll retire when she is dead and that she would be bored if she wasn't weaving all day.

Kid on a bike that is way too big for him.

Bikes on a boat! Us with our guide.

Kids happy to see us.

Our second tour was a bicycle tour through several small villages on the islands outside of Hoi An.  Here we got to see locals make woven mats, boats, and other crafts.  We bicycled along rice paddies.  Our tour guide for this tour was my favorite thus far.  A 23 year-old very modern and very ambitious Vietnamese woman.  She was very candid about her experiences, life, and the culture of Vietnam.

She confirmed that she doesn't like Vietnamese men because they are not good boyfriends, and would rather date a western man (or a more modern Vietnamese man) who will help around the house, help with making money, and help with child raising.  She claims she doesn't have a boyfriend because she doesn't like any of the Vietnamese men she meets.

We also had a very long conversation about skin color in Vietnam.  Like most Asian countries, it is considered more beautiful here to be pale.  Women avoid the sun at all costs.  In fact this is why many women are wearing face masks while biking around town (it's not just because of pollution, it is to keep the sun off their face).  Several women have come up to me here and touched my skin and told me it is beautiful.  Several women have also come up to me and scolded me for not wearing long sleeves in the sun.  One lady said: "You will get dark and ugly, need to put on jacket."  My mom would be so happy that I am getting constant reminders to cover my skin.

Our tour guide said that she used to care a lot about keeping pale, and would bleach her skin and wear a mask all the time.  But since she started giving tours 6 days a week, where she is outside all day, she said it's pretty much impossible to stay pale.  And she isn't allowed to wear a mask because it makes it hard for people to understand her.  So basically she has accepted that she will be dark as long as she has this job.

In one of the villages some teenage boys on bikes rode by and said something to her which she laughed at.  Later she told me that they said to her: "You are so ugly black girl, you should put on a mask."  She wasn't at all ugly, but was pretty tan.

Mat Weavers

Basket boat

Pretty field

How to Get Custom Made Clothing in Hoi An, Vietnam

I just spent 5 days on Hoi An, Vietnam.  I knew that I wanted to get a bunch of clothes made there, but I didn't know anything about how getting clothes made works, or even the process of seeing a tailor.  I feel like I've learned a lot in the last few days, and so I thought I'd put my advice here for future travelers.

The process:
The process of getting a tailor made suit is a follows.

0) Look at trip adviser for up-to-date reviews of various shops.  Remember that most hotels have deals with a specific shop and get commissions to refer people there.  This means these shops are more expensive than other places, and might not necessarily be very high quality. 

I loved this shop:  

Thien Thanh Cloth Shop
Address: 43 Le Loi St.
Phone: 0510 3 862 182

I did NOT like the place my hotel recommended, please don't go there:

Hai Au Xanh Clothes shop
Address: 481 Cua Dai, Hoi An 084, Vietnam



1) Check out places with good reviews.  Find a shop person who you like and feel you can communicate with (they have varying levels of understanding/speaking English).  Trust your instincts about the person, if you feel like it is too hard of a sell, they are trying to get you to buy things you don't like, or that your styles clash -- go somewhere else.

2) If you have time get something small made at several difference places on your first day to see which tailor you like the best.  Then go back to the place you like the best to get more.

3) Pick out a design from one of the catalogs, or have them reproduce a piece you already have (bring it with you), or bring in your own photograph of what you want.

4) Communicate, communicate, communicate!  Talk about what you like about the item, how you want it to fall on your body, how long you want it to be, what colors you like, how you intend to wear it.  A good sales person should be taking notes and understanding and engaging in this process.

5) Pick out the fabrics (see note on fabric below).

6) Come back the next day for a first fitting.  Don't be too worried if you don't 100% like how the piece looks during this first fitting.  What is more important is how the sales person responds to what you say.  A good sales person should be able to suggest improvements and should be quick to point out the need for alterations.  You shouldn't have to convince a sales person that you need an alteration.  If you find yourself having to insist about things, then don't buy anything else from that tailor.  At this point check the item thoroughly. Is the stitching even?  Are there any holes or stains on the fabric?  Is the line even?  Can you move in it, sit in it?  If there is something you don't like the look of, point it out to the sales person, they should be able to suggest a way to improve the piece or address the problem.

7) Come back late that day for a final fitting. Hopefully everything will look perfect at this point, but you can still ask for adjustments if you don't like how something looks.

8) Go back to the tailor who you liked the best in the first "test" round, and order more from them.

Prices
Tailored clothes in Vietnam (as of 10/2012) are about 1/3 of the price of the same retail item in America.  Suits are $70-$120.  Dresses are $20-$40.  Dress shirts are $10-$25.  Prices depend on the quality of the material and the deal you negotiate.  The more you buy the more of a discount you can negotiate.

Where to Go
The shops with a bigger storefront (i.e. Yally's) tend to be more expensive, but will also be more polished in terms of efficiency and willingness to make changes.  They will also have a wider range of fabrics to chose from.  The tailors inside the market are the cheapest (the market is only open during the day, not evening like most of the shops in town).  I suggest talking to a few of the sales people at a few stores before you decide who to buy from.  The sales person is going to be your line of communication between you and the tailor.  A good sales person will be able to help you understand the pros/cons of different fabrics, help you figure out which colors go well together and go well with your skin tone, and will ask specific questions about how you want the clothes to fit, how many pockets you want, what lining do you want, how wide to you like the arms and legs, how much padding do you want in the shoulders, etc.  A good sales person will also help you understand how to make alterations in the first fitting to address any problems.

Fabric
Before you start the ordering process with a sales person look at their fabric.  Make sure they have the type of fabric you are looking for, in the colors/patterns you like.  Think about the clothes you like to wear at home and what fabric they are made out of.  Not all fabrics are equal.  Examine how thick, soft, etc the fabric is and ask the difference between different fabrics.  Most of the sales people will be hesitant to tell you prices before they measure you.  This is because once you go through the whole process of getting measured and picking stuff out, you are invested in the product and so you are less likely to walk away.  Instead look around the shop that the dresses/jackets they have already made as examples.  Ask how much it would be for them to make the SAME dress for you.  Ask the difference between two items which look similar but have different fabrics.  Go to several shops and get an idea of prices and talk to the shop people before you decide to get something made.

We both got several suits, pants, shirts.  I got a couple skirts and dresses.  We also got custom made shoes. I'll let you know how they hold up to wear.  Pictures to come soon!