6 days in Hoi An

Hoi An, the "City of Tailors" and voted twice as a UNESCO world heritage site, lives up to both these titles. The ancient town has sooo many tailors, your head starts to spin as you try to differentiate their names and location, but at least the town is small enough to complete in a day, so it's still ok.

The former harbour town was an important Vietnamese trading centre in the 16th and 17th centuries, where Chinese from various provinces as well as Japanese, Dutch and Indians settled down.

The architecture and atmosphere of the place brings one back a few centuries. Ok, think about those Chinese drama series settings with family houses, gardens, full moon and martial arts. You'll get the picture.



Day 1 - Arriving at Hoi An

We flew with Silkair, which was departing from T1, but we went to the newly built T3 to take a peek:

T3 departure hall

Looking for food.

Our flight brought us to Siem Reap first for a half hour transit:

Siem Reap - our supposed next destination in July

And wow, were we impressed with their airport





Making our way back to the plane

We arrived at Danang airport around evening time and were transferred to our first hotel - Ha An Hotel. This boutique hotel offers great service: the staff were friendly, the breakfast wasn't too bad, they had free bicycles you could use to ride to town and free internet service as well. Their tours to certain attractions weren't too expensive.

Typical colonial building

Dining cum breakfast area

The staircase from the reception leads up to some rooms on the 2nd level.

Standard non-garden view room

We were a bit skeptical about walking to town at night, considering what happened in Hanoi. We were also a bit worried since it was so quiet and no motorbikes or people walking around, but we eventually did take a stroll to the town centre for dinner:

Hoi An town at night



Lanterns everywhere (the woman is digging her nose, a national past time we've observed over two trips to Vietnam)

Thu Bon (if I remember correctly) river runs through Hoi An town


One of the many tailors

We dined at a place called Cafe 96 which was recommended on the TripAdvisor forum for its white rose (a shrivelled version of "har gaos") and grilled fish wrapped in banana leaf. We've had better.



The stores were mostly closing by 9pm, so we made our way back to the hotel on foot.


Day 2 - My Son ruins

Yay! I like visiting ruins. Since we might be skipping our trip to Siem Reap and we had so many days in Hoi An, we arranged a private driver to the My Son ruins, another UNESCO World Heritage site.

Looking bloated. Who's that in the background? Kaypoh.

These relics were from the Champa kingdom who were mainly an Indianized kingdom that controlled central and southern Vietnam from the 7th century through to 1832. There's an extensive history of the Champa kingdom in Wikipedia which you can read up on.

The most significant site for the Cham temple architecture is here, in My Son (pronounced as "mee-sawn"). It was heavily damaged by US bombing during the Vietnam War and what remains now are ruins and relics that have been extensively restored.

Intricate carvings on the walls

Carvings of Hindu gods

"Hello?! Anyone there?"


Statue of a God without the head

Doing the touristy thing


Strike a pose


Peeping


Ta-da!



Tomb-raiding

View from inside


An outer cloister

Two rooms were allocated to display some relics. I overheard a guide mention that none of these here are the original ones that date back to the 7th century. Not sure how true this is though:

The rest of the body got bombed


An altar. Ever wondered why there's a drainage-like system built into it? Hehe.



Headless god again. The head is the most vulnerable part of the statue, hence most of the statues are headless.


Making our way to another site nearby. This site had lesser ruins than the one before. It's mostly grass.

Jungle


There were stone tablets dotted around the site with scriptures engraved onto them.


Restoration at work


MAJOR reconstruction!


70% of it had toppled down.


On our way back, we stopped for petrol. Works out to be about SGD 1.35 per litre. Hmm, it's ok I guess.

The tour to My Son ended around noon and we were dropped off at our hotel, so we washed up and made our way to town for lunch and our first visit to the tailor.

On our way to town, cutting through the market along Bach Dang street. I saw a pair of earrings here but I didn't get them. Hmm, I should have. Damn!

An old house at a street corner


Bach Dang street - the street right next to the river.


Lunch was at Banana Leaf Cafe along Bach Dang Street. Service was substandard. The fried wontons were fantastic though!

Continuing our journey to our tailor - Yaly

Yaly tailors is one of the most prominent and popular tailors in town. Almost every tourist goes there and tour guides bring their customers there too (also because they earn commission by doing so). Plenty reviews of Yaly are available online. Yaly is also known to make anything and everything, although occasionally, certain designs might be a bit daunting for them to copy or reproduce. They've also got the widest range of fabrics to choose from and a lot of them don't come cheap, well not for me.


I made a white dress with cotton and polyester and it cost me USD 45! I also made a cotton shirt for 28 USD and a vest for 25 USD. Bear in mind that I chose the second lowest grade material.

Making my way around Yaly

I guess it's always a better alternative for odd-sized people to have their clothes tailored (people like Bunny). But for me, it can be rather costly if I wanted something of good quality because I'm usually able to just buy clothes off the rack. But since we were in Hoi An, we might as well just make some stuff to bring home!

Going over to the other side to choose fabric

Bunny had a few shirts made (two from other tailors) as well as a linen jacket, and she's very happy with her purchases because it's so hard to find clothes that fit her nicely. It's easier to bring a sample and just let them copy it (which I did for my dress), although they have a lot of catalogues for you to choose from.

Hmm, think I've found the right one!

I happened to go upstairs to choose buttons, lo-and-behold! It was a sweatshop upstairs! Adolescents were seen sewing and ironing. Another sweatshop that belongs to Yaly is right next door. But I guess it's the norm in Vietnam, for children to start working at a young age.

I must say that Yaly is still a tad bit overpriced if you're looking for something simple, like a business shirt or pants. Oh, and they even make shoes!

Continuing on our journey for Day 2...

By the time we left Yaly, it was nearing dinner time so we walked around a bit more, looking at t-shirts and other handicraft, before settling at a restaurant named Faifoo (Hoi An used to be known as Faifoo). And we saw this sign along the way:

Farking service!!! Hahahaha!


Our view of the street from Faifo restaurant along Phan Chau Trinh


The interior of the restaurant - very Chinese.

By the second night in Vietnam, I was already craving for non-Vietnamese food. So we ordered fries, a pizza and spring rolls, along with Larue Beer.


A lantern's growing from my head.

Day 3 - Cham Museum, Marble Mountains and China Beach

Making our way to Danang where the Cham Museum is located.



Cham Museum houses the largest collection of sculptures and relics from the ancient Champa kingdom and is also the only museum in the world that is dedicated solely to this era.

God Uma - the goddess of light. Uma is another name for Devi, Parvati and Durga. She is the most complex and the most powerful of the goddesses. She is a "shakti" of female energy. No wonder this was the first picture I took. Hmm.


God Ganesa


Plenty more halls to explore but they essentially had the same artifacts in them.



The lion - we found this sculpture quite funny. Most of the lions were made this way.


An altar

Garuda bird

Dragon and me


Dragon and Bunny

Most of the relics here were from My Son.

Yes, the building is very run down and old. Just like the Danang airport.


Restoration in progress. Looks fun!

Comparing sizes

We spent about an hour there and continued our journey to the Marble Mountains. The Marble Mountains are inland karsts and represent the five elements. Buddhist sanctuaries can be found on the mountains and there are numerous cave entrances and tunnels.

At the foot of the mountain - a start to a treacherous climb (less treacherous than Sapa of course!)

I hate steps! Especially under the scorching sun!

Are we there yet?


Finally. A temple.


And a pagoda.


Entrance to one of the caves

And this was what we saw once we were in the cave:






I think we stumbled upon a photography outing comprising mostly of Japanese men with Nikon and Canon DSLR cameras. They had their tripods set up and were shooting away at the model standing in the middle of the cave.

We moved on to another cave and tried venturing through it, but to no avail. So we did a "u-eey" and exited it.

Some other buildings on the mountain


I can only read the first two characters.


Erm, Asian Quasimodo?

We finally reached the viewpoint. Time for some panoramic shots:

There were plenty of marble sculpture stores at the foot of the mountain and here's one of "Ben", Fu, Lu and Shou.

Our next stop was China Beach, just to catch a glimpse of the area where the US troops first stepped onto Vietnamese soil:

We stood there watching a herd of kamikaze cows slowly strolling towards the sea.

We return to the hotel around 1pm and made our way to town again after washing up. We headed straight to Yaly for our first fitting, informed them of some changes and decided to explore the town a bit more, since we didn't really manage to over the past two days.

Lunch was at a roadside stall that was catered mainly for tourists.

I had the Central Vietnam version of pho bo. It's tastier than the northern version and less bland. Bunny was having the cao lau, a local Hoi An cuisine.


The street where the roadside stall was. We bought some cheap Vietnam t-shirts from the stores on the left.


Bicycle parking lot.


We crossed the bridge to take pictures of the ancient town from the other side.


Thu Bon river




The Japanese Bridge - which is also the symbol for Hoi An. It was built by the Japanese community in 1593 to link them with the Chinese quarter. What's interesting is the art stores you'll find on the other side. It's also much quieter there. I liked that part of the town.



On the bridge

Crossing over to the other side of town.




Bargaining with the girl over a lamp that I bought for the house.


We saw chihuahua looking mongrels everywhere.

Vietnamese coffee

Bunny and her teeny conical hats


Making our way back to check-in to our second hotel

We stayed for two nights at Ha An hotel and another three at Swissbel Golden Sand Resort. Here are some night shots of the hotel:

Standard room

Hotel lobby

BBQ seafood buffet

Taking a stroll around the resort after a filling dinner

The 150m long pool

Day 4 - Chillin' in the resort and to Yaly for second fitting

We woke up early, had breakfast and relaxed on the beach and at the pool till lunch time.

Cua Dai beach - We learned that it's pronounced as "kerrr dai bitt"





The currents here are pretty strong.

View of the resort from the beach




Golden Sands was fantastic! The pool and beach wasn't crowded, the food was quite ok (although we suspect that it gave us food poisoning) and the service wasn't too bad either.


The tennis court


The lush greenery

Returned to Hoi An town for second fitting:

Had lasagna and a passionfruit cake at a cafe.


Walked past the oldest house in Hoi An (forgot its name).


Lacquerware


Cantonese Assembly Hall


We went back to the same cafe for Vietnamese coffee and a happy hour mojito for Bunny

While we were being fitted for the second time at Yaly, Bunny had a food poisoning attack. She was blacking out, had severe abdominal pain and was breaking into cold sweat. Thank goodness someone asked her what's wrong and showed her where the toilet was, in which she did all her business at (meaning puked and diarrhea). She was in no state to stay out, so we went back to the hotel and ordered room service:

Poor thing!

Day 5 - Tailor-hopping

It was MY turn to get food poisoning after Bunny's attack the previous night. I woke up at around 630am and felt terribly nauseated. So I went to the toilet but couldn't puke and ended up having diarrhoea the entire day.

I couldn't eat anything because I was always wanting to vomit but I never did the entire time. So we didn't do much and just chilled at the beach and pool again, and accompanied Bunny to Yaly and some other tailors to replicate some shirts of hers.

She's extremely happy with her purchases.



Getting bored at another tailor.

Day 6: Last day to chill before heading back to Singapore

Playing in the kids pool!


We're so gonna miss this!


Danang airport's one and only departure hall - it reeked of feces. Serious. And the walls were peeling. Ewww.


Goodbye Vietnam! It'll probably be our last trip there.

WWF pictures...as promised

Some pictures from the Worldwide Festival event at Fort Canning last week. The Samsung camera phone kinda sucked and it's supposed to be taking pictures at 5MP. But when I transfer them to the computer, the images state 2MP. Then again, the resolution is 5MP. Argh. It's pissing me off.

Loved this cat poster

I think we just arrived in time for K&D (short for Kruder & Dorfmeister). They occupied the set for close to two hours or so.

We were standing quite far away and we slowly eased our way towards the stage.

To watch some people grooving near the DJ set on the stage.

Ying, the "ticketmaster" of the night.

Pity we only participated in the last night out of three whole nights of music, but it was better than nothing, plus we saved on one ticket anyway!

Gilles Peterson's WWF

Just got back from WWF, no, not World Wrestling Federation, but World Wide Festival (or rather, World Wide Music Festival).

Music was fantastic and the ambience at Fort Canning Park was ok. Although they could do with more laser lights. Thanks to Ying, we managed to get one free ticket. Bumped into two friends there and one of them told me that they were there since 3pm!

I've just came home, around 2am, packed my luggage for Hoi An, and shall post pictures from WWF when I'm back from Vietnam.

I hope this trip to Vietnam will be better than the previous one.

Woohoo!

Mother's Day 2008

Another annual event - Mother's Day. This time, I sourced around for credit card promotions (coz I'm a cheapo) and looked at reviews from www.hungrygowhere.com. My mom said she wanted to have Chinese food so I suggested dim sum but she decided that she didn't want to wake up early on a Sunday, so she suggested dinner instead.

I shortlisted a number of Chinese restaurants, ranging from mid-range to expensive, and finally settled for a mid-range one called Kam Boat at Shaw Centre. Turned out my choice was a bad one. Damn. Should have just stuck to some restaurant at a hotel or something. Well, at least I booked a week in advance, so tables were guaranteed.

My brother exploring his new LG pseudo-iPhone. It's quite cool.

Erm, looking a bit awkward.



Pictures of mom on Mother's Day.


Still playing with the phone camera.

And here's the menu:

Buddha jump over the wall


Spinach with three coloured egg


Beef with garlic and onion


Scallops


Claypot chicken with wine - the chicken tasted a bit funky and couldn't taste the wine at all. Yucks.

Hor ("whore", according to Bunny) fun with prawns


Almond hashima

The food was substandard and service was poor, mainly because there wasn't enough staff to go round the tiny restaurant. Mom said we'd better not have Chinese on Mother's Day next time because most of the time, it's usually quite packed as a lot of mothers prefer to have Chinese food over other cuisines.

Yeah, I think so too. We'll stick to Jap next time.

*burp*

iPod Nano + Book Rampage

Yes! I've won something! No, not "again". Every soul I told replied, "Again?!?!" You're so lucky!" Erm, I think the first thing I ever won in my entire life was a Sony Cybershot camera for an image I submitted on a photo competition organised by Sony. I eventually sold it away.

This time round, it was simpler. I didn't have to collect votes over a period of 14 days, which was what I had to do in the Sony competition, and all I did was upload pictures at www.photofrenz.com and send them for printing! Plus there was some promotion going on and I managed to print 139 photos for only $41 (inclusive of shipping. Yes, they post the printed photos to your address).

I've decided to give the iPod to my brother. I guess it'd be nice to "upgrade" my 4th Gen iPod to a new one, but I'm quite happy with my overly scratched and old iPod. I'll probably wait till it dies and becomes totally irrecoverable before I consider a new mp3 player.

I think it'd be great if he could listen to some music while making his way to uni everyday.

So I've told myself to cut down on unnecessary spending on cab rides, food and shopping, but I've been rather keen on buying books recently.

*insert Bunny's remark, "Sai cheen" (Cantonese for "waste money")*

Now this mood hits me once in awhile (erm, once every quarter or so?) and when it hits, I go on a book rampage. Ok, I'm exaggerating. It sounds like I buy 20 books at one go, eh?

When I say a book rampage, what I mean is, I end up visiting Borders twice a week just to see what books I can buy. I search Amazon.com for reviews and I shortlist some potential reads. But I end up buying less than 5.

I even went to the library to find some good fiction and that was when I realised that the libraries in Singapore suck so badly. You can only borrow 4 books at one time and they don't carry a lot of books, although I did find a few titles by Milan Kunera but that was about it. So I ended up borrowing just the travel guides for London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels.

I had an impression we could borrow up to 10 books! 4 is pathetic la, but I guess this is the way to ensure that people don't over borrow and end up losing or not returning some. I remember I could borrow up to 18 books in Melbourne and mind you, it's from those teeny tiny community libraries near my house! They had a fantastic range of fiction and their non-fiction section was enormous, with plenty of ambiguous subjects that would entice you to find out more about it.

Bunny won $40 Kino vouchers from being the "Most Stylo Bowler" at her company outing a few months back, so she sold them to me at a discount and I used them to purchase:

- The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini
- Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

I even cut out a 30% Borders discount coupon to buy Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I subscribed to their mailing list (twice) and received two 20% discount coupons that I have yet to utilise and I'm aiming to read Umberto Eco's In The Name of the Rose once I'm done with the travel books and Brave New World.

See what I mean by going on a book rampage? It's not so bad. I only do this 2-3 times a year. :)

I also considered setting up a mini Book Recycling Club with Moo and Zon. Here's how it works: If I have a title I want to read, I'll ask them if they have it and they'll mail it over to me! Well, that's only if they bear to part with it in the first place. I think it's a good way to save money by "recycling" books.

I've mailed The Blood Chamber by Angela Carter to Moo because I thought she would like the stories and her writing, and guess what? I was right! Phew. It was simply a blind guess and intuition on my part.

I used to be rather possessive with my books but I realised that there's no point in doing so unless you want to read it again, which I never got about doing it because I'm always craving for new things (it's not a very good thing). Although I really do want to read certain titles, I just can't help reading something else from a spanking new book. *grin*

And no, I won't be visiting a bookstore today (I think). :)

So sweet of my bro...and plans on my first Europe trip!

So sweet of my brother to get me a gift when he returned safely from his army training in Taiwan. :D


He even got a gift for my mom as well. I didn't expect him to get us something at all. Such a sweet boy.

Hehehe.

Bunny and I are currently planning our first BIG trip to Europe! We've already reserved tickets and we intend to cover London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. Yes, just 4 cities for now. For me, it's about the money and the number of leave days I can take from work and I'm pretty limited to just a 11 day trip to the 4 cities. Sigh. It's barely enough but I think it's good enough for me because at LEAST I get to go there and the accommodation in London will most probably be for free!

Our other Europe plans will be:

- Do Germany on its own or combine it with Austria
- Spain, Portugal and probably southern France can be combined
- Switzerland should be a trip on its own but can be combined with Italy and Austria
- Greece and the Mediterranean should be a trip on its own.

IF ONLY we had the time AND money, it's best to just do the ENTIRE Europe at one go. But it'll take very long and even 21 annual leave days will not be enough for that. So I guess I'll just have to split my Europe trips into different regions...or save enough money, quit my job, take a break in Europe and come back to look for a new job. Hahaha. That'd be ideal, but I would need maybe a year or more to save. Hmmm. Ok, I should start considering this option too!

This is just so fucking exciting!!! Can't wait to go to the land of haut couture..and then to the land of beer, off to the land of abundant weed and then to the country that colonized us all.

Yipee!!!