Writing to you all from our early morning bus ride from Hanoi to Da Nang to catch our flight to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). I have so much to cover in this post, so buckle in — although I have tried to spare you all with a few iMovie compilation videos…let us know how you like them vs. separate pics and videos. Post-writing edit: Yeah, it got to be too much, so expect a second part tomorrow!

Leaving Hue by bus, we were in for quite a treat for our eyes. Expansive vistas greeted us as we zigged and zagged up the mountains. Our CEO/guide, Puna, pointed out the famous Lang Co Beach, which is the longest stretching beach in Vietnam and one of the prettiest. If you look it up, you will see why it got that title and why many in Vietnam and Southeast Asia vacation there. As we continued to climb the winding mountain, we asked if the bus driver could pull over for us to take a photo, and he thankfully obliged. Below, you will see the gorgeous group photo Puna took of us all.

Back on the bus, we made one last impromptu stop at the bay in Phu Loc. The morning sun was breaking through the clouds, cascading beautifully over the waters rich with mussels and oysters. This is one of the highest-producing regions in Vietnam for these delectable treats, with farming happening twice a year thanks to the perfect water temperatures. Some in the group slurped down a few oysters for a quick lunch while Jeff and I ended up with an iced coconut coffee (shocker) to pair with our very flavorful chicken bánh mì we packed from Hue. Back on the bus for the remaining 90 minutes to Hoi An!

As we neared Hoi An, Puna explained our late afternoon and night plans. In the midst of this, the bus passed through the ever-growing hub of travel tourism known as Da Nang. Besides the international airport, Da Nang is home to a few tourist attractions you may have heard of — Dragon Bridge (seen below), Da Nang Cathedral, the Phan Lam Pagoda, and many amusement parks (Fantasy Park, Sunworld, etc.). This once quiet town has invested a lot of money to drive tourists to stay in Da Nang and then day travel to Hoi An, and it is clearly working as I’ll explain later. We initially thought about doing the opposite by day-tripping to Da Nang before settling back one evening in Hoi An, but other plans prevailed.

Bags dropped, rooms checked into, and off the group went into the sunsetting streets of Hoi An. Puna warned us that we would be in for an overwhelming experience of food, shops, and more — thank goodness for the warning! We met up with our local Hoi An tour guide, Hai, who would walk us through the bustling streets of Old Town, also known as Ancient Town. This place put a new meaning to Sticky Rice Family as we all had to try our best to stay together amidst the craziness that is Hoi An at night. Between night market vendors setting up, bar employees grabbing your attention to come in, and more…we did not know where to look or who to listen to. Hai was excellent at providing us the major highlights in Old Town, which are clustered within three major roads and highlight the beautiful history that is now a UNESCO Heritage site.

Hoi An Ancient Town is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a Southeast Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century. Its buildings and its street plan reflect the influences, both indigenous and foreign, that have combined to produce this unique place. Nowadays, due to the river shrinking over time, the town has focused on trading via walking tourists and no longer those arriving by boat. Those trading boats have now been replaced with numerous long boats ready to whisk passengers downriver to make a wish via floating candle baskets; it is quite a sight to see at night. They are also famous for their many silk lanterns that adorn absolutely everything — restaurants, power lines, boats, trees, and even motorbikes.

Hai pointed out a few notable places to spend time in the next two days, which we did, such as the Japanese Covered Bridge, Tan Ky Heritage House, a Chinese Assembly Hall, and others. Since it was passing 5:30 PM, most of these UNESCO sites were closing, and Hai steered our attention instead to two of her favorite shops — Toto Leather and Blue Chic Tailors. The first is where we met the owner, who demonstrated how to test for real leather, which is to burn it and smell it. If your nose picks up burning plastic, then run away from the shop as it should instead smell like BBQ. The goods available at Toto ranged from wallets, bags, and belts to duffles, briefcases, and any shoe you could dream up. We would definitely be back to Toto. Blue Chic Tailors was next and right across the street. The fourth-generation owner explained the shop while her staff cooled us down with ice-cold waters and local beer. The store is lined top to bottom with bolts of fabrics; silk, wool, cashmere, linen, tweed, and SO much more. They had mannequins dressed in finished pieces, and they were immaculately sculpted. Books with reference photos were provided, and they essentially said, ‘if you can dream it, we can sew it’. The majority of the group went to dreaming, with some starting that very moment with choosing fabrics and getting measurements. Since Jeff and I needed more time to think, we opted instead to meet Puna and Hai at a bar to further cool down with cocktails. We dreamed over those cocktails and planned to return first thing in the morning when the shop opened at 8:30 AM. To our surprise, they said if we were the first ones in, they would give 10% off everything and have the pieces ready later that afternoon for our first fitting…just wild with their speed.

Once the group was back to being sticky rice, we headed to a local restaurant, Green Mango, where they were waiting with a shot (starting to be a theme, ha). Puna guided us to the local dishes of Hoi An that included cao lầu, bánh bao, cơm gà, and mì quảng. I ordered the cao lầu, which is a rice noodle dish topped with pork char siu, bean sprouts, and fresh herbs inside a flavorful broth. This is probably the most famous dish of Hoi An, and I can see why. It was delicious down to the last slurp. It also has a fascinating history as it is rumored to have been created using local well water in Hoi An that they still practice to this day, or so they say. The noodles themselves start out as typical ones made of rice that get steamed, which we got to make on our second day. But after the steaming, they are cooked in ash, which gives them a brown color and more chew for the palate. I’ll most certainly be finding a Vietnamese place in Orlando to feed my cao lầu cravings.

After dinner concluded, a group of us poured onto the busy riverside street and were immediately bombarded with offers to get us on a lantern boat. Our newest group member, Krissy, who lives in London but is an Aussie, had this on her bucket list. Louise haggled the price down from 150,000 dong to 70,000 dong per person, which included the floating wishing candle basket for each of us. The driver navigated down the Hoai River as we passed lantern-lit boat after boat. As we made our way near one of the major bridges, the floating wishes started to flicker among the waves. The driver cut the motor, lit the candles, and we began the process of one-by-one dipping our baskets into the waters as you’ll see in the video below. It was a fun experience that was made even more special as it was a full moon. Because of the lunar night, it was packed to the gills with people making wishes, both on the water and on land. As we learned later from Hai, the shop owners would also mark the lunar night by placing an offering outside and also burning paper to provide ash.

With the wishes made and our eyes starting to droop, we decided to call it a night as Jeff and I had that early tailor appointment to make. So once we woke up and filled up on hotel breakfast, off we went to Blue Chic Tailors to begin the process of choosing fabrics that would eventually become full 3-piece and 2-piece suits as well as blazers. It was a blast pulling bolts down and envisioning what they would become. We bounced from the main store to their secondary one just down the street to make sure we picked the right fabrics. I erred toward linen, cashmere linen, or a blend of wool-cashmere-linen while Jeff did more of the latter. By the end of it, we had enough picked out to create the following order:

– For Jeff: Two 3-piece suits, two 2-piece suits, and a blazer

– For Andrew: Two 3-piece suits, two 2-piece suits, and three blazers

And for all of that, our totals came out to roughly $948 and $815, respectively. We were told to come back after 6:30 PM so we could try on and begin our first fitting process. You read that correctly — from 9:30/10 AM when we ended to 6:30 PM, they would create all of those and have them ready to try on!

Now that the custom clothes were ordered, we dashed across the street for custom leather sandals at Toto. The shop owner was elated to see us again and begin measuring our feet on paper, wrapping a tape measure around certain parts, and marking down all of the measurements. I opted for two pairs of sandals, one deep green and the other in yellow, while Jeff chose burnt orange. Once again, we were told to come back later that evening and they would be ready.

After custom clothes and custom shoes, we decided to look at all of the art galleries and shops throughout Ancient Town. While very beautiful, we collectively said we needed no more art since our walls at home are running out of room and we already had one new piece from the trip. So off we went into a café for, you guessed, an iced coconut coffee and relief in the air conditioning. We headed back to the hotel to join back up with Hai and Puna to begin the very fun tour of Hoi An that included a noodle making class with lunch, visits to a tofu maker, an organic farm, the coconut village with bamboo boats, and more. I’ll have to debrief you on that in the next post.

Cheers — Andrew