Indochina Day 9: Arriving in Hoi An and finding a tailor

I got woken up by the constantly changing temperature of the cabin. For some reason, the air conditioning would turn on and off throughout the night, making it nigh impossible for me to sleep. Eventually I just stayed awake with my eyes closed, hoping that something would knock me out, and knowing that nothing will.

I did manage to get some short naps in here and there, but I did not get a good night's rest. I gave up at one point and decided to look out of the window for a while to watch the scenery rush by. Another scenery viewer started talking with me. Apparently he was a Vietnamese resident who was studying in China. His English was passible, but he struggled with communicating at a number of points.

I had booked a driver to pick us up at the railway station so we did not have to wait long before he showed up. We headed to the hotel where we were happy to find our room had a working air conditioning unit. We quickly took a bath to clean up the grime from the train and discovered that the switch that controlled the hot water also controlled the air conditioning unit. You got one or the other. Disappointing!

Maggie in the historic town of Hoi An.

We headed down into the old down of Hoi An to look for tailor shops and spent most of the night hopping from one store to another. I had never been asked if I was Asian until today. Apparently my facial hair and relatively large eyes confused the locals. Strange! Eventually we settled on one and put in our orders. After taking my measurements, the lady told me that she would take photos of me for reference. Fine. Then she told me,

"[Blah blah blah]... Take off your T-shirt."

I was pretty sure I heard that wrong. So I asked her to repeat herself.

"Take off your T-shirt."

That's what she said. So I took off my shirt and she took a few photos of me. Uh, is that normal? Maggie did not have to undress for this part.

We then had dinner at Tan Tan where I was able to try out bahn xao (on Marie's suggestion) and Cao Lau (on Larry's suggestion). Both dishes were really tasty!

We wandered down to the river where we saw people releasing lanterns into the river and then headed back to the hotel where We took yet another shower to feel human again. I spent the rest of the night updating my documents. I need to go easy on the laptop as there are no outlets with a ground line so I can not charge the laptop battery easily..