| no 1 Posted Tuesday, 27 June 2006 | ||
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| OK gather round imagine a world where you can walk into shops say what clothes you want and they make them and they fit and make you look goood and cost a fraction of the price at home...Imagine putting your feet in shoes that you designed and they feel like you have worn them all your life with no chance of a blister.... I am living that dream. It is called Hoi An in Vietnam. Hoi An is a beautiful old town down the coast from Hanoi the main tourist industry is tailoring. Amongst the beautiful old crumbling Chinese architecture there are these god sent shops all trying to make your clothing fantasy come true. Fortunately I had a few design ideas in mind and they came up trumps. it is easy to go a bit crazy here I now have 6 new wardrobe items and 2 pairs of shoes for about 80quid ( OK so I might be home a little earlier than expected because of it, but I'll look hot at Heathrow!). The downside is now i have to get even more massages to realign my spine under the colossal weight of my bag! We got our clothes from the cloth market, a warehouse with cloth piled high and push peddle sewing machines ( oh and really tired looking people hanging out). the ladies explained it was a government run co operative. The ladies who did most of our tailoring are now my new best friends. i consider anyone who manhandles my breasts, kiss and hug me when they see me and tell me i look 'sexy, fantastic, beautiful' every two minutes very good friends indeed! The only problem with having this freedom of tailoring is that some people ( not me of course) have absolutely rank taste in clothes so it quite good fun to watch what hideous concoctions people have had made and the disgusting fabrics...I mean really it would be rude to take spy photos but i was really tempted... We were expecting Vietnam to be a bit hassle and full on...but once you get with the hard sell and have a bit of a laugh with the people it becomes an altogether great experience. they just love the 'dorror' a bit too must, but all things considered you can understand why. We had the pleasure of meeting an ex pat (Collette) in Hanoi who worked as an English editor for the official government 'Voice of Vietnam' radio. we arranged to go for dinner where she told us all about the censorship that goes on and the restrictions on the Internet. I have noticed from the English language newspaper that everything is good news, 'no, no, we have no bad news, nothing bad happens here'. hmm. if you are reading this mister censor I'm only kidding. by the end of our evening with Collette and several cocktails later, we ended up counselling here about whether to stay or leave Vietnam and her men troubles (she has been engaged to 3 men one of which did war reenactment and had a ponytail. i only have a string of failed relationships, but ponytails and war games? come on they are the basic warning signs!)... Since leaving our OZ friend Doug in Laos we haven't had as many drunken episodes as we did you will be saddened to know. (sorry Doug it is just a way for me to not take responsibility for my heavy drinking).... oh yeah, but then there was last night. we were with some Irish friends. we seem to get in trouble with people from the great drinking nations OZ and Ireland. ended up in some random bar out of town which opens late for tourists etc etc....(if you want to know what 'etc etc' is, please email with the title 'dish the dirt'). Vietnam is a funny old place with weird contradictions 'dorror loving' rip-roaring capitalism and then Ho Chi Minh worshipping and big propaganda billboards.. We went to see Uncle Ho as he is affection ally referred to by everyone. they keep him picked like Lenin in a massive granite mausoleum. unfortunately they put strange orange lights on his face and hands so he reminded me of those glow worm toys that you squeezed as a kid. in fact I though he was glowing from the inside at first sight. The revolutionary museum was much the same as Laos in content, but more spangly. Uncle Ho's museum was like an acid trip. giant chairs, apples and bananas 20ft tall apparently symbolising agricultural growth? collection of teapots, a desk he may of sat at set on a giant Lilly pad....it was more of a concept piece than any real content of history. absolutely nuts. Ha long Bay boat trip was a high light. really beautiful got a bit sun burnt, but women still love my skin and insist on touching and stroking me so you couldn't say i look tanned or anything....phew! went to a great cave the tour guide built up all day that there is a surprise in the cave 'whey hey hey we thought'. OK when we got into the sup rise area we saw what can only be described as a stalactite in the shape of an erect male member illuminated in red lights. Intriguing and humerous in a Benny Hill kind of way. but the real 'surprise' for me was the guide didn't seem to think so, in fact she insisted it was a finger pointing upwards. she asked the group 'can you see what it is?', 'erm yeah a big erect penis'. the guide was so confused when we tried to explain what we thought it was, we had to point to men's crotches ( it was another Essex girl who did the pointing, trust Essex girls). when the penny clicked what we were on about, so the giggling started. in fact she could barely control her giggles for the rest of the two days. I will put the photo on line and you can judge for yourself. finger? pah. on that note I'm off to watch a rubbish American film in my posh hotel room ( i actually watched Beverly Hills Cop II). they put petals on your bed...(for 3 quid a night, there are photos). by the way you will be glad to know I have a cold. putting on suncream and wiping snot at the same time is just a little surreal, but it might cheer you up on a Monday morning... | ||
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