Hoi An, Vietnam

Ryan and I spent 3 days in Hoi An. We were scheduled to stay only two days, but fell in love with the area on our first day and knew two days wouldn’t be enough. Hoi An is a charming ancient beach town with a plentiful fish market and clothing tailors on every corner.  Our first two days in were spent in the city, walking around the market and taking in the sights.

Our friend from the Halong Bay cruise recommended a tailor on Le Loi Street called Adong Silk. He spoke so highly of his suit that Ryan and I thought it would be worth checking out. After glancing through some fabric it wasn’t long before Ryan was hooked. They made him a dark gray suit along with a shirt.

We also ran into another one of our friends from the Halong Bay cruise. He too had tailoring on his mind and visited the same shop. His purchase was a bit more grand than ours. He walked away with six suits and nine shirts total. He and Ryan were there together for their final fitting and I must say, both gentlemen looked sharp! Ryan also got a custom western shirt made. It looks great. He likes it so much I think he plans on getting a few more made in Saigon.

I didn’t leave Hoi An without some custom tailoring either. I had a fall coat made by the cutest Vietnamese woman ever. She told me I sweated too much and that my butt was too big and required more fabric to cover it. So nice right?

The third day we rented bicycles and rode them out of town. Our first stop was the beach. We spent all morning relaxing underneath a tiki hut and splashing in the water. We sat next to a couple and learned that the girl had just graduated from Wharton.  Surprisingly, she and Ryan had met briefly at a recruiting event in December.  It’s such a small world!

After the beach Ryan and I rode the bikes into the country in search of rice fields. I found a man harvesting one and asked if I could learn and take his photo. He was incredibly sweet. He didn’t speak any English, so he tried to show me how to do it using hand signals. I think he enjoyed having his photo taken. Very cute man!

We were out in the country pretty late and rode the bikes home during sunset. I was a bit nervous about this. It’s already difficult to navigate on foot in the daylight in Vietnam, let alone on a bike in the dark. There were a few moments I thought I was going to be hit.

All in all, Hoi An was a fabulous place. There’s a lot of development happening in this area, in Vietnam in general. It will be interesting to see what happens here in the next 5 years.