Hoi An shopping

Hoi An is famous for two things:
1. The Old Quarter of the town (the UNESCO World Heritage site) which is full of beautiful old preserved buildings; and

 2. Tailors. The town is absolutely full of tailors, nearly every old building in the Old Quarter has been converted into a tailor shop. Some of the tailors make really good quality clothes too. So when I went to Hoi An, I went prepared. I had printed off a picture of a lovely trench coat from the internet (something like this one, but not satin or crinkled), researched which tailor had the best reviews on Tripadvisor, then went to A Dong Silk and had them make a perfect copy of the coat. And just because I could, I also had two work skirts made - now I just need to find a job so that I can wear them!

Dan also had some clothes made, he went to one of the lesser-known (and therefore cheaper) tailors and had a coat and a work shirt made. He also got two pairs of boardies specially made so that they had side pockets.

If clothes aren't your thing, then Hoi An has plenty of other things to tempt your wallet open. There are hundreds of mini-galleries in the Old Quarter, some selling original artworks and some selling copies and reproduced artworks (like the ones above). I found a brilliant original painting by a local artist that depicted the cramped architecture of busy Vietnamese cities, unfortunately it was US$350 and I couldn't justify buying it when I don't have a home to hang it in or a job to pay for it.

More in my price-range were the endless variety of ceramic mugs, bowls, plates and tableware in every souveneir shop. I went to the Reaching Out store - which sells handicrafts made by local handicapped people - and bought a big handmade serving plate painted with blue dragonflies. It's a gorgeous plate, I'm just going to have to struggle with it when it comes time to pack my bags for the return flight to Australia.

There were also lots of locally-made colourful silk lanterns on sale all around the Old Quarter. As pretty as they are, I didn't buy any - too hard to pack!

About 2 kilometres out of town was a village that was famous for making pottery roofing tiles. There isn't much a demand for roof tiles anymore so the potters have started making trinkets for the tourist market. We just went there for a look but, once we stopped at one of the pottery places, I felt guilt-tripped into buying something. I ended up buying 2 clay whistles (only about $1 each - but that's enough money for a big meal!), one in the shape of a fish, the other in the shape of an elephant. The elephant one is funny, you have to blow into it's bum so that the whistling noise comes out of it's trunk. Classy!

This photo was taken at the local market. There were some beautiful flowers there for sale.

Dan in one of the shopping streets in the Old Quarter. The old lady squatting down behind him was selling some kind of food and carrying it around in trays hanging from a big stick carried over her shoulder. A lot of the old women carry around huge loads that way, I don't know how they do it, it looks so uncomfortable and like it would really hurt their shoulders.

Hoi An dining

A few expats have told us that the best food in Vietnam comes from the central area, including around Hoi An. So we were pretty excited to go try the local delicacies, including 'cau lao' - a type of doughy noodle with salad and pork (I had the vegetarian version), fried wontons (different to the more typical, Chinese-style wonton) and 'white rose' - prawns in rice paper with some secret ingredients, only one family in the town knows how to make them. They were all really, really good. Plus Hoi An is full of restaurants and bars serving Western food, beers, wine and cocktails. We gorged ourselves at the Cargo Club which, as well as having awesome restaurant food upstairs, had a huge selection of cakes and ice-cream downstairs. While we were at Hoi An we had a few days of unseasonal constant, drizzly rain, and although it wasn't great weather for sight-seeing, it was perfect weather for sitting in a cafe, drinking hot tea and coffee and sampling a variety of dishes on the menu. Bon appetit!

 An old house converted into a restaurant, located along the riverfront.

 The same restaurant as above. Dan had a few glasses of 'fresh beer' here (we think that means beer that is brewed daily). One glass of fresh beer cost about 7,000 dong (about 30-40cents).

 A local specialty - fish grilled in banana leaf. Check out the teeth on the fish! And that crazed looking eye.

 Dan inside the Yellow Flower restaurant (also on the riverfront).

We did a cooking class at the Yellow Flower restaurant, Dan is frying some vegetables to go in fresh (as opposed to fried) vegetarian spring rolls and Marcus is cooking thin strips of pork to make Cau Lao.

Tam Tam Cafe, We spent a wet morning here eating burgers and toasted sandwiches (I had a tomato and cheese toasted sandwich with two different types of cheese! Amazing - we can't even get cheese in Soc Trang!) and drinking coffee. Then, when the rain refused to let up, we shared a pot of tea and a slice of black forest cake. Not a bad way to wait for the rain to ease.

Christmas and Hoi An

The last two weeks (or so) have been absolutely action-packed for me. First there was Christmas...

Which Dan and I spent in HCMC. We went to a friend's house for dinner (another Australian volunteer) and ended up having ham, turkey, roast potatoes and apple crumble - all very traditional Christmas food and not at all what you'd expect to be eating in the sweltering heat of south Vietnam. It was great! Those mashed potatoes (with cheese!) and roast potatoes were an absolute highlight for these two potato-deprived Soc Trangians! The photo above is the only one we took on Christmas day, and no, that's not a cheeky Christmas carnation behind Dan's ear, it's the lovely wallpaper in our hotel room.

 Then we went to Hoi An with some of Dan's friends from NZ. Hoi An is on the south central coast of Vietnam and it was once a major trading hub. The old town has beautiful old buildings dating back to the C18th when the Japanese and Chinese thought it the best trading destination in all Southeast Asia. Many of the old buildings have been preserved (the old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and they are simply stunning. The buildings in the photo above are along the riverfront, they have mostly been converted into restaurants/tailors/souvenier shops now but they still retain their sense of history.

The photo above shows the Japanese Bridge in the old town of Hoi An. The bridge was built around about the early C17th. There is a legend that the bridge was built to to subdue a world-spanning 'mamazu' dragon monster, whose head was located in India and its tail in Japan. Whenever the dragon moved it's tail it would cause earthquakes in Japan. Vietnam was located on the dragon's back so the bridge was built to pin the dragon down, preventing any earthquakes.
 

The Chinese had a strong influence on the architecture of the area and built many temples. This is one of the smaller temples in the old town, I love the bright colours and intricate carvings on the doorway.

And this is me with a big green rock. I have no idea if this rock has any spiritual significance, but it looked quite impressive and seemed a good place to have a quick rest.

I have a lot more pictures of Hoi An, I'll upload them later. I really enjoyed my time in Hoi An, the old town was really beautiful (and, for the most part of the day, the streets are blessedly free of trucks, cars and motorbikes, and more importantly, free of the sounds of truck, car and motorbike horns - such a luxury in Vietnam!), the food was delicious and the shopping fantastic. More about that later...

Drawing competition award ceremony

On December 26th the three Mekong Delta provinces involved in the GTZ biodiversity drawing competition held an award ceremony in Bac Lieu. This was the drawing compeition that I helped organise. The video below is news coverage of the award ceremony (in Vietnamese but with English subtitles).