Hoi An

We arrived after another uncomfortable 13 hour bus journey. I swear they're getting worse - one thing that can be said I think after a night on one of those you appreciate any kind of bed, just for the fact it isn't moving and throwing you up in the air constantly. I've also managed to get my bag placement down to a tee to maximise the room for my legs while minimising the temptation for any opportunist thieves that may be lurking - there isn't alot of room to play with.

Whenever you arrive in a new place off a bus you are always swamped by taxi drivers trying to rip you off or trying to take you to a hotel that pays them commision. Most the time it is a bit of an annoyance, sometimes a real ballache - especially when you get dropped off miles away from anywhere useful and have no choice but to pay the ridiculously over-inflated fees that travellers new in town do. The one absolute godsend that can avoid all of this (and believe me at 6.30am having had barely any sleep, it really is a godsend) is the hotel pickup. Driver standing there with your name on a piece of paper ready to fend off the touts and take us straight to where we needed to be. It was a good start.

Our hotel was great, we had a buffet breakfast, great pool and a free shuttle bus service in and out of town for free. Also air con seems to come as standard in Vietnam, which is nice - a luxury! Hoi An is famous for the amount of tailors there - it's hard to describe quite how many there are, they literally line every street. I'm sure if you're reading this you probably know that we're both starting in KPMG not long after we get back. We'd been trying to decide the whole time through our trip what, if anything, we were going to get made here for our new jobs (no more rolling up to work in shorts for me). It's seriously cheap for tailored clothes (really it's more made-to-measure than tailored). On the plus side it would be massively cheaper than if we got anything done at home, on the negative side it would be a bit of a gamble regarding the quality and even whether they would be prepared to do all our alterations once we paid our deposit. Because of this we'd spent a fair bit of time researching the tailors online and the one which stood out as being the best was called A Dong Silk - the reviews on tripadvisor (which hasn't let us down yet) were overwhelmingly good. We had a little walk around to get our bearings and we spoke to a few different tailors. Despite being a little bit pricier than the others we got the best vibe from A Dong Silk. They were the only ones that were actually forthcoming about the quality of the fabrics and they all seemed really friendly and really keen on their service. Everyone else promised the world but their prices were too low to actually be offering what they claimed.

We took the plunge. I was only going to get a couple of pairs of trousers but I got a little carried away after negotiating a pretty decent discount, I got a suit with two pairs of trousers, two other pairs of trousers and two silk ties for just over a hundred pounds. Maddy got two custom dresses, a suit with a pair of trousers and a matching skirt. We paid our deposits and headed off, we would have our first fitting the day later. When we got back everything pretty much fitted perfectly first time, the jacket needed a few alterations but they were really good at suggesting and fixing the things that needed sorting. Maddy's dresses needed a bit more sorting because the designs were a bit more involved - again though they sorted it all out perfectly. In the end we were so happy with our clothes that we ended up ordering some more. I got another suit with two pairs of trousers, another pair of trousers and a couple more ties. The shirts didn't seem to be so good value so i'll leave them 'til I get home. other than that I think i'm all set for work now! Maddy ordered another suit with trousers and skirt and another dress. It was quite good fun to be honest going back and getting all the fittings and alterations. I got a special pocket put in the lining measured around an ipod/iphone - what a gimp! We had to buy another bag each to take it all home which is a bit of an annoyance but we don't have too many journeys left to make now!

One night they threw a little party at the tailors as well which was utterly bizarre. The sales assisants all had the task of pretending to be a tour guide for a chosen country somewhere in the world and giving a presentation about Hoi An and then the country they were supposedly from. Their presentations were all in English so they kept asking us for help and practicing with us while we were in the shop and not busy. We went to the party for just a little bit and it was so funny - they had the most comedy Vietnamese guy hosting the evening. Maddy's sales assistant won the competition.

As an aside, the prospect of work is looming ever larger as our travels come closer to an end. We have sorted out loads of admin bits in the past couple of weeks for work, including signing a waiver to say that legally we are happy to forego our right to have an average working week of no more than 48 hours. What a great idea! I'm a bit worried about what we've signed up for, but excited to get going at the same time. We all start on the 3rd of October.

There was more to Hoi An than tailors though. We dusted off the cameras after our dull week in Nha Trang and got snapping again. It was a beautiful town that had been pretty well preserved. We had loads of great food, the people were incredible. It was really touristy but that didn't really spoil it at all. At night it was incredible, loads of laterns lighting all of the streets. Moreover it had possibly the best beach we've seen in all of Asia just a short bike ride away. We also went and got some more massages, we even got a facial! It was all good fun, we ended up staying one more night than planned so had 6 nights there altogether. We didn't want to leave but time was pressing on and we had a fair bit to do before our visa expired and we had to get to China. I think i'd happily go back to Hoi An and spend a couple of weeks there! On our last night we set of three little lanterns down the river which should apparently bring us good luck - how nice. One of the lanterns got stuck on a piece of rope after about two meters and then a boat came and knocked them all out of the way - maybe that doesn't bode too well. But then I don't believe in any of that stuff anyway so i'm sure we'll be fine.