Having lingered in Nha Trang for a week meant we had to rush from there henceforth. We did promise ourselves of not rushing during this trip, but the 3 months we were meant to spend in South East Asia were close to becoming 6. Indian shores are calling us, and the Vietnamese visa was running out. So we reached Hoi An, the gem of Vietnam, the Luang Prabang of the situation, that place that everybody loves. And I did too, to be honest. Hoi An is undeniably pretty; a small town with a distinctive Chinese flavour on the banks of a river, with rickety old houses and that decadent feeling that pervades century-old towns in tropical climates. Wandering around Hoi An in the morning one can see merchants crossing the Japanese Covered Bridge with that iconic contraption made with a long stick and two baskets (of which I don’t know the name). There are still several old Chinese shophouses with wilted fronts, but no old men smoking opium inside; they have been converted as museums or handicraft shops.
What Hoi An is chock-a-block full of is tailors. Some reckon there are about 600 tailor shops in the town which, trust me, is rather small. Hoi An has been famous for centuries for being an impostant centre for the trade of silk; the concept has remined but modernised, and now it’s an important centre for the manifacure of clothes for falangs. Scores and scores of shops with rolls of fabric line the town’s streets, some good, some bad. How to choose a good one? Follow the old Lonely Planet? By all means do so, if you have money to spend. All ‘mentioned’ places seemed to charge an extra $10 to 20 mentioned-on-the-Lonely Planet tax. At the same time, I have to admit those places looked and felt legitimate, whilst many of the nondescript shops charging $25 for a men’s suit probably employed sweatshops to produce the garment in the promised 24 hours. I walked and walked for a whole morning, taking the initiative and following touts, but nowhere satisfied me. What I wanted was an ao dai, the traditional Vietnamese outfit of loose-fitting trousers and long Chinese-style tunic split on the sides, for $30 tops. I was just about to fold and admit defeat when a gentle soul pointed me to Mrs Lan’s shop, who charged me $25 for the ao dai. Mrs Lan instantly impressed me with her friendliness, and with the fact that she didn’t need to employ phony misspelt recommendation letters to lure customers. Her rolls of silk where thick good quality fabric, and not just the usual dragon-and-ideogram pattern. I chose a roll feturing colorful dragonflies on a golden background, plus dark blue for the trousers. And guess what? The ao dai was ready on the following day at 9 am, manifactured by Mr Lan, tailor extraordinnaire. And it fits like a glove.
Hoi An is one of those places, like Prague and Venice, Luang Prabang and Salvador de Bahia, where it’s just nice to be, to wander around, to soak up the atmosphere. Although geared towards tourists it wasn’t overrun with them, thus it was pleasant to stroll the cobbled streets early in the morning, flanked by ladies in conical hats riding bicycles. There was a disctinctive lack of touts, with the exception of those for the tailor shops, but even those where not at all aggressive. And to make the place even better... wonderful cuisine. We tried Cao Lau, the traditional Hoi An specialty of thick doughy noodles in a savoury broth, with bean sprouts, a variety of herbs, pork slices and crackling, and it was absolutely delicious. A good cross between noodle soup and dry noodles; the savoury broth only filled about one third of the bowl, ensuring moistness but still making the dish palatable in 40+ degrees. Another interesting specialty was white rose, this time more of a snack than a dish. It was similar to steamed shrimp dim sum, but a thousand times more delicate; a tiny freshwater shrimp encased into a papery thin riceflour wrapping and covered with crispy onion flakes.
To be brutally honest with you, I’m getting rather sick of Asian food. After having nothing but rice, noodles, noodle soups and stir-fries for 5 months, I’m craving Western food. Yes, I’ve had my relapses, I’ve had burgers, pasta and pizzas, and every single one of them tasted wonderful (especially the gnocchi bolognese in Nha Trang... almost as good as the diving). But Western food is expensive, and probably the fact that I’ve enoyed it so much recently is because we’ve only had it sporadically, as a treat. So forgive me for the lack of enthusiasm in presenting local specialties that pervaded my earlier Asian blog entries. Perhaps I’ll make up for it in India?
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