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We were supposed to go to the tailor at 9.30am, but ended up only getting up at that time. Oops. We made our way to the tailor for our final fitting after 10am and were excited to see the final products. Edd's wasn't happy with the buttons on his blue suit and left with one of the assistants in search of button stores. I tried my dress on and they hadn't altered the neck line enough, so it had to get sent back one last time for a fix. Edd came back half an hour later with blue buttons that also shone pink. They were pretty cool and matched his lining, it was a perfect choice. (Naturally).
We then made our way back to the guest house to pick up our stuff to go to the beach. We arrived much later than we'd planned, to no available sun loungers allocated to the restaurant we wanted to sit at for the day. I then walked up and down the restaurants looking for the salsa bar I'd discovered the day before, but then realised it was at a different part of the beach. I walked back to Edd to tell him about a French restaurant on the opposite side that had sun loungers available and good food with well priced drinks; we collected our bikes and made our way across. We had an altercation with an irate parking assistant as he wanted us to pay him to park our bikes at the undercover area, but we'd figured out that you can park for free outside the restaurant you eat at. Edd and I were very much looking forward to visiting Vietnam, but our experience of the people (from the second we arrived) had been far from enjoyable. We found them volatile, angry and attempted to intimidate you into paying for things that were actually free. My issue being that I'm female (and quite short); they get more than they bargained for when Edd steps in and tells them how it's going to go down, being 6 ft 3 and defending his woman. Like a mother tiger with her cubs, you don't wanna mess.
We got drinks while the barman organised sun loungers for us under an umbrella. We were then taken to a spot on the right hand side and shared an umbrella with a Swiss girl on her own. Edd enquired immediately to the whereabouts of a potential partner and she explained that they'd had a similar experience with the parking assistant; he'd gone to 'walk it off' as he was quite upset about the whole experience. We chatted to her all afternoon and exchanged numbers, deciding to meet up later in the evening at a wine bar she'd found. We swam and tanned the afternoon away and had a late lunch / dinner at the beach, the Swiss girl having left to go to another fitting at her tailor.
We made our way back to our guest house through the paddy fields as the sun was setting. A buffalo and her calf were having a mud bath in one part of the fields and we watched them play and suckle while we road past. They were tarring this stretch of road, working through the night as they only had 1 truck delivering the black sludge; it made cycling on the untarred side a very bumpy exercise. It also smelt really bad and the heat that emanated from it was something to behold.
It is interesting to note that I was fine riding a bike now, it had turned out that the bike I was riding was a little dodgy, so every time I moved the handles slightly, I veered off in a different direction. This did not happen on any of the other bikes, so I avoided the one with the green lock key like the plague.
We had decided to meet at 9pm so had some time to kill, Edd watched a movie while I blogged. The tailors dropped off our items at 8.30pm and I tried my dress on again: it was perfect and we thanked and hugged her goodbye. We were both very pleased with what they had made and wrote them good reviews.
Making our way to the wine bar just before 9pm, we weaved through the people ringing our bike bells like the cars did with their hooters when people got in the way. You were only allowed to walk and ride a bicycle in the old quarter, which made it less stressful as we weren't dodging mopeds on the wrong side of the road. We met her and her boyfriend just after 9pm and ordered a drink, deciding that it was quite an expensive place and we'd leave after 1 round.
We then made our way to the other side of the river and sat down at a bar that offered 2-4-1 cocktails and free shisha if you were more than 3 people. We got strawberry flavour and the boys went and played foosball while we sat and chatted. Edd introduced us to a Russian girl that was sitting on her own and we chatted to her for a while, she lived in Vietnam and worked in a hostel. She found a place she liked and then went on a hunt for a job there, with no intention of ever moving back to Russia permanently. The boys played a game of pool against another 2 guys they'd met and after a victorious win, we finished our drinks and headed home: it was after 12.30am and we were all exhausted, but happy.
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