Hoi-an the town of many tailors and power failures. I got about 20 mins into writing an entry last night when the power went out in the entire town that we were staying in. Not unusual apparently, sucked for me though.
Hoi-an is cool, there is nothing there but tailors who will custom make anything for you, you can just show them a picture out of a magazine and they will make it exactly in any fabric you want. They will also copy anything you already have. It's dirt cheap too. I got a suit for conferences (a.k.a my "once a year" outfit) two pairs of pants and a skirt custom made for under 40 bucks. Pretty nice. If I move to Cambodia when I'm done I will probably pop over again with the entire Jesus catalogue and a copy of Vice magazine and let them go wild.
There is lots of cool architecture and stuff in Hoi-an too but to tell you the truth I am getting totally sighseing-inged out. Europe was a little different because each place was so different but after a while everything here just starts to look the same. Interesting but the same.
Interesting/gross/weird things I saw:---Hoi-an
1) a sewage pumper truck stopped on the banks of the river right in front of all these restaurants pumping it's entire load of raw sewage right into the river
2) children swimming and playing in the same river
3) People fishing and washing in the same river
Interesting/gross/weird things I smelt: --- Hoi-an
1) The Hoi-an market has to be the stinkiest place on earth. I have never smelt anything so pungent in my life. I managed to make it about 4 feet into the place before I almost barfed all over some lady's table of rotting, fly infested meat. These people must have iron stomachs, how they eat this stuff is beyond me. Nothing is refrigerated it just sits out in the sun fermenting in it's own putrid juices. Glad I'm a vegetarian.
2) Hoi-an is famous for spices, safron and cinnamon especially. I tried to smell as much of it as possible in order to avoid the smell of the market. Jumping from rotting meat stall to rotting meat stall while I huffed cinnamon sticks but it was no use. There is also a lot of tiger balm here but alas putting big gobs under each nostril only dulled the stench and gave me a bad case of "burning nostril" and it looked like I had major nose goblins hanging out of my nose holes. I got the idea from watching too much C.S.I on T.v, they alway got shit under their nostrils in the autopsy room, guess you can't believe everythign you see on T.V...mom was right.
Now I'm in Hue for a 5 hour stop before another exciting 16hour bus ride to Hanoi. Didn't really have a lot of time to see anything here though. Went to the market, nowhere near as stinky as Hoi-an.
Interesting things I saw:--- Hue
1) A street vendor set up on the side of the road with old american dog tags from the Vietnam war. Kinda creepy, I wonder where he got them? I read a bunch of them..."Thompson, Rod. New York, --company, Christian." wierd, creepy.
2) two women on motorcycles with about 15 ducks hanging upsidedown from the front basket...alive and quacking. Not flapping around or anythign, just honking and quacking away...poor duckies probably don't know they are on thier way to the slaughter house and then back to the market where they will sit and rot in thier own ferment.
Didn't smell anything interesting here.
We are going to go on a three day boat cruise in Halong bay when we get up to Hanoi, I am looking forward to a total lack of stinky markets, cyclo drivers, vendors ("lady, lady, you, you, buy my stuff!!") and the daily tourist grind.
Talk to you soon
Hoi-an is cool, there is nothing there but tailors who will custom make anything for you, you can just show them a picture out of a magazine and they will make it exactly in any fabric you want. They will also copy anything you already have. It's dirt cheap too. I got a suit for conferences (a.k.a my "once a year" outfit) two pairs of pants and a skirt custom made for under 40 bucks. Pretty nice. If I move to Cambodia when I'm done I will probably pop over again with the entire Jesus catalogue and a copy of Vice magazine and let them go wild.
There is lots of cool architecture and stuff in Hoi-an too but to tell you the truth I am getting totally sighseing-inged out. Europe was a little different because each place was so different but after a while everything here just starts to look the same. Interesting but the same.
Interesting/gross/weird things I saw:---Hoi-an
1) a sewage pumper truck stopped on the banks of the river right in front of all these restaurants pumping it's entire load of raw sewage right into the river
2) children swimming and playing in the same river
3) People fishing and washing in the same river
Interesting/gross/weird things I smelt: --- Hoi-an
1) The Hoi-an market has to be the stinkiest place on earth. I have never smelt anything so pungent in my life. I managed to make it about 4 feet into the place before I almost barfed all over some lady's table of rotting, fly infested meat. These people must have iron stomachs, how they eat this stuff is beyond me. Nothing is refrigerated it just sits out in the sun fermenting in it's own putrid juices. Glad I'm a vegetarian.
2) Hoi-an is famous for spices, safron and cinnamon especially. I tried to smell as much of it as possible in order to avoid the smell of the market. Jumping from rotting meat stall to rotting meat stall while I huffed cinnamon sticks but it was no use. There is also a lot of tiger balm here but alas putting big gobs under each nostril only dulled the stench and gave me a bad case of "burning nostril" and it looked like I had major nose goblins hanging out of my nose holes. I got the idea from watching too much C.S.I on T.v, they alway got shit under their nostrils in the autopsy room, guess you can't believe everythign you see on T.V...mom was right.
Now I'm in Hue for a 5 hour stop before another exciting 16hour bus ride to Hanoi. Didn't really have a lot of time to see anything here though. Went to the market, nowhere near as stinky as Hoi-an.
Interesting things I saw:--- Hue
1) A street vendor set up on the side of the road with old american dog tags from the Vietnam war. Kinda creepy, I wonder where he got them? I read a bunch of them..."Thompson, Rod. New York, --company, Christian." wierd, creepy.
2) two women on motorcycles with about 15 ducks hanging upsidedown from the front basket...alive and quacking. Not flapping around or anythign, just honking and quacking away...poor duckies probably don't know they are on thier way to the slaughter house and then back to the market where they will sit and rot in thier own ferment.
Didn't smell anything interesting here.
We are going to go on a three day boat cruise in Halong bay when we get up to Hanoi, I am looking forward to a total lack of stinky markets, cyclo drivers, vendors ("lady, lady, you, you, buy my stuff!!") and the daily tourist grind.
Talk to you soon
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