Hoi An

We're having clothes made in Hoi An.  They have one thousand tailor shops and even though we don't want to spend money and have NO room in our suitcases, we're going for it. 

This town is known for their tailor shops.  I hadn't heard of it until somebody said, "go to Hoi An" and I was like, "haha idiot, it's Hanoi".  But there are two and they are different.  Now who's the idiot?  So I had one pair of pants and three dresses made, and summer had the same plus one pair of knee high leather BOOTS!  We ordered all this stuff up one day, and it was ready the next day.  We were pretty astounded by this, especially the boots.  You just go in, tell them what you want, pick out fabric, get measured, and they make you something.

We were talking to a girl though one morning, who has a French accent, but it turns out she's from Minnesota (wha?) and she said that she had some trouble communicating what she wanted, and so she sort of demanded to speak to the tailor.  She told us, and please read ziss wiss a Fronch accent:

"Ze reason zey don't want you to speak wiss ze tailor is becoz zey don't want you to see it only takes 25 seconds to make a pair of pants."

This same girl:

1. Went to jail for two days in Cambodia.

2. Had her passport confiscated.

3. Got hit by a motorbike yesterday.

4. Is a 'nomad' and hasn't been home for 6 years.

5. Was told by a Vietnamese boyfriend that she was just 'ok', and admitted to us that he was right.

6. Weighs about 94 pounds.

7. Had her laptop stolen from her hotel safe.

8. Goes into villages and lives with people in exchange for working on their farms or cigarettes or English lessons.