Hoi An

Yesterday in the early afternoon, I arrived to Hoi An, a lovely town (and again UNESCO world heritage) 130 km south of Hue. I took a train, which was an interesting experience itself. I was the only westerner in my coach, which was packed with people. The train took almost three hours for 100 km (The train does not directly go to Hoi An but to Da Nang about 30 km away). But the ride was beautiful as the train goes around some higher mountains along the seaside and there were several spectacular views. But life within the train was much more interesting actually. Next to me was a boy of 10 or so with his parents. He was already quite chubby and did nothing else than eating - for three hours... it was just fascinating what he could eat and the parents just let him.. While the train was really basic, there was a catering service (with a variety of hot dishes) and a "bord restaurant" (having seen it you would understand why I put it in brackets..;-) ), which is much more than the train from Strasbourg to Brussels has to offer... ;-) By the way: you will see a little bit of the chubby boy in the pictures below.. ;-)

The toilets were not usable because they were packed with people's stuff, escpecially huge kumquat or mandarine trees (I could not really tell..) which people carry hime for the TET-festival. Tet festival is the lunar new year, which has a particular importance for Vietnamese. Half of Vietnam is actually somewhere on the road to join the family for one week family gathering. Everybody is carrying enormous bags with gifts (most of it real kitch... you can see it as they wrap it in transparent foil) , much worse than on the train I took back from Brussels to Germany just before Christmas... New Year (beginning of the year of the rat) starts in the night of 6 to 7 February, but shops and everything alse is already closing tomorrow (5 February).

Somebody from my hotel picked me up at the train station, waiting with a sign with my name, which is quite a nice feeling, you feel welcome..

Hoi An is a small and relatively quiet place, with an old town with plenty of traditional houses. The speciality here is however tailoring. There are tailor shops all over town and everybody coming here leaves with plenty of bags with tailor made suits, dresses, shirts etc. but also with other souvenirs such as lanterns or scarved wooden boxes with chop sticks..

I thought that I should leave this rather to one of the next days since I stay here for 4 nights. I chose to stay longer since I wanted to go to the very nice beach (just 5 km form town) and relax before heading to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and then back to Brussels. So I did the tourist visit first. For this morning I booked a cooking class and I thought I would then have a look at the tailor shops this afternoon. During the cooking class, I learned howver, and I was so naive not to think about it myself, that all the shops would be closed for at least 3 days for Tet!!! I panicked as I really wanted to have one or two suits made..

The cooking class was great fun. We prepared the rice paper which you need to prepare fresh spring rolls and rice noodles (this is really easy !!!) and the fresh spring rolls taste just so much better if you prepare the rice paper yourself (see the photo below with me holding proudly my freshly rolled spring rolls) !!! yummie ! We also prepared green papaya and mango salad with warm squid and shrimp served in a pineapple (see photo), eggplant stew with lemongrass (see photo) and traditional Hoi An pancakes (made from rice). It was just so good and in a really nice location where we went by boat (and I managed for the first time to get a photo of a fisherman throwing out his net...). The stuff was really funny and it was much better than any cooking show on television than you can imagine. We were 20 participants and two thirds were Australians of which half a group of ladies in their fifties having left their husbands alone at home.. we had quite a laugh... ;-) We also had one lesson on decoration of plates. Please admire particularly the rose I prepared from a tomato skin..

When coming back into town, I realised however that it was not true that one of the recommended tailor shops was open throughout the new year festival, as one of the Australians had told me. Everything closed !!! Sh.... !!!! (see the empty sowing room below ...) I was so annoyed and angry with myself and most of you would have been surprised when they had seen me in this hour or two.

In the end, after wandering around quite a bit, I found three possibilities (all non recommended places). And I took the risk.. It was more expensive than I wanted, but still really cheap for European standards: 100 % wool with 100 % silk lining (the An area is also famous for the silk production; see the silk worms on one of the picture..) .. I just hope that everything will turn out fine and that they do not rip me off.. I will know tomorrow afternoon at 4 pm when I have to go there for the fitting. Then they will do further adjustments (if necessary) and the day after the suit will be ready. Please, cross all the fingers you have for me... ;-)

Now it is dinner time... ;-)