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We arrived in Hoi An after our flight was delayed a further 4 times and we were met by Phils friend Diem who owns one of the many hundreds of tailors in Hoi An, Diem Diem. She took us straight there from the airport and we got to work straight away even though it was close on 9pm, already showing her the many clothes we wanted her to recreate. Our excitement kept on building and by the time we were leaving to go to bed we had a list of about 3,000,000 new clothes piled up on Diems desk. She took us to the hotel we would be staying in and we got in a good nights sleep ready to continue with more designing the next morning.
We woke up pretty early for us and went straight to Diem Diem's. Every shop in Hoi An is literally a tailors and the general layout is lots of mannequins sporting the tailors most common designs and then wall after wall of fabric. Every fabric you could possibly think of. We spent the entire day from 9am to 9pm rifling through magazines and catalogues, choosing our favourite garments, searching through the fabrics and then being measured from head to toe for the perfect fit. It was a shoppers paradise! We met Diem's family who took care of us. We were provided with 3 meals a day, as well as plenty of snacks and more beer than you could shake a stick at, which was a bit annoying as we wanted to detox from our 24 hour partying in Nha Trang! The Grandad also gave us a suspicious looking shot that he made Nyima drink which to her horror turned out to be made from lots of dried seahorses! Diem's mum also spied Martha's mosquito bite ridden legs and decided something had to be done. So she produced this strange red liquid that smelt suspiciously like petrol and proceeded to sit Martha down and put her through the worst pain in her life by vicisouly scrubbing the scabs off her legs with the red petrol and then covering them over with about 50 plasters. You can see the result of this on our pictures! (However, it has surprisingly proved successful and Martha's legs are healing very nicely!) At the end of our first exhausting day the clothes makers scurried off with our handfuls of designs and we returned to our hotel. Which, by the way, was awful! The toilet didn't flush and that caused all sorts of problems, a pneumatic drill woke us a 6am each morning due to the construction work going on in the room right NEXT to us, the TV didn't have V (the channel that keeps us up to date with worldwide entertainment) and they boiled our eggs for far too long! Not impressed!
The next morning we returned to Diem's and our first items were already made! We spent the day trying on all our clothes and then getting them readjusted if they didn't fit. We also chose a few more bits and pieces as we were so impressed with the quality! Again we were snowed under with food and beer and Martha's legs were attacked once again. Another hectic day, another early night!
Our last day everything had to be completed. The tailors rushed in and out, snipping the odd hemline, extending a few skirt lengths (or not!) and making sure everything fitted perfectly! A rough estimate of the amount of clothes purchased by the three of us comes out at 14 pairs of shoes, 18 tops, 12 dresses, 5 pairs of trousers, 3 pairs of leggings, 4 bags, 6 hoodies, 2 coats and 4 belts. We each needed a new bag to carry everything back to Nha Trang with us! Whoops. That evening, after everything was done and dusted, Diems family took us to the beach. There we sat for a few ours and had the most wonderful feast you could possibly imagine. Laura discovered a love for quail eggs, and we dined on amazing food ranging from clams to crabs to squid! It was simply divine! And the drink of the night was... surprise surprise... beer! After stuffing ourselves to the brim we splashed around in the sea dodging the freshly caught puffer fish being thrown around by a young boy! It was a lovely end to a tiring few days of pure shopping!
We left the next day to head back to our second home, Nha Trang! The flight was fine and dear old Phil was sat at the airport waiting for us! We leaped into his open arms and now we are back in glorious Nha Trang! We'll write soon x x x
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