Barbers, Tailors and Bottle-opener makers

I know we had plans to head to Laos and Cambodia... but we've loved Vietnam so much that we're going to spend the rest of our time in Asia here before we fly to Helsinki in just over a week.

We haven't posted for a while, but finally have access to our blog again! We're in a little hotel in Hanoi, whose internet doesn't have all the restrictions that we've found everywhere else.

We spent much longer than planned in Hoi An (just like we've done in almost every stop so far!). The place was beautiful, and all the clothes we had made in Hoi An were amazing - so Em went back and had more each day we were there. We had to post home 16kg of clothing! (there are a few shots of the clothes on Flickr, but the rest will have to wait until we come back home... we've both lost weight in Vietnam, so we're hoping that we don't put on too much weight in Europe, and that all the clothes still fit when we get back!)



Em wasn't going to get a suit made, but she might need one eventually... and the prices were so cheap.

There are a couple more street shots of Hoi An below. Our tailor is right in the Ancient town, and she was telling us that it's much better there now that Hoi An is World Heritage listed, than it used to be. Her family has lived in the same house for 8 generations, but they used to own 8 houses in Hoi An. The communist government confiscated 7 of the houses after the war, leaving her with just the one she's in now. The heritage listing means that it's less likely her last house will be taken by the government as well.







Jade, who works at B Lan's (our tailor), took us CD shopping in Hoi An, as I was determined to find some good Vietnamese music to send back to FBi. Before I left Sydney, Stuart (who not only runs the station, but also presents the world music show - Fat Planet), told me that good Vietnamese tracks were really hard to find - so I set off on a mission. But Stuart was right... I listened to lots of CDs, but couldn't find anything. Finally I bought 3 CDs without listening to them on Jade's recommendation (they were 40c each).

I don't know where you go in Vietnam to buy 'real' CDs (non-pirated). Even in the CD stores everything is copied - DVDs, CDs, VCDs - and really cheap. But because it's pirated, you're not allowed to post them out of the country, so we have a small pile of DVDs and CDs to carry to Finland with us now!



After leaving Hoi An, we caught a bus to Hue and spent a day there. We did some sightseeing in the walled Hue Citadel, inside which is a walled Imperial Palace, inside which used to be the walled Forbidden City. The emperor allowed only his concubines and eunuchs in the Forbidden City, and the eunuchs were not a threat to him. The entire Palace area was bombed in 1947, and most of it is now in ruins.

Gwil got brave just before we left Hue, and got a haircut from a barber whose store was in a courtyard behind some chicken wire. It was pretty dirty, and Gwil looked pretty scared more than once!



The barber wore a face mask through the whole haircut!

Also in Hue, we met Lac, who is deaf and mute. He is one of 3 deaf mutes who runs a Vietnamese restaurant on a street just outside the Hue Citadel! You order using sign language (which was SO much easier than ordering in Vietnamese). The food was amazing, and at the end of the meal he made us a bottle opener to take travelling with us. In his restaurant he has 3 photo albums, and a photo wall, which are full of photos of his customers, with their bottle openers, in front of tourist attractions around the world. We're going to try to get a photo of us with it in Russia and send it to him - as that was a country he was missing from his collection.



After one day in Hue, we got the plane to Hanoi, and have just today gotten back from 3 days on a boat in Halong Bay... we're both still rocking as it's strange to be on still land. I'll put up some info on the boat trip later on.

Hope all is great at home. Nerys is having a baby soon, we're very excited and we hope that everything goes well. We know it will be another very cute kid!