Scuse me SiiIIir, what you looking fooor? Look here, watch? Belt? – buy tshirt siiIIiir?
When entering the market it is an attack, 3-4-5 people are on you at once. Its like wild animals smelling blood, its funny to start, but gets a bit much after a while. Its impossible to just walk around and look at the hundreds of stalls inside this huge building.
Everything here is negotiable, except for the outer ring of shops that have fixed prives. 99% are fakes, all the known brands. A Superdry backpack is for sale for 1.400.000 VNd, after the haggle dance you will get it for 600.000VND, thats the usual – just under half of asking price, sometimes a bit lower – at least if you opt for two of the same items.
They vave absolutley everything, lots of tshirts, bags and shoes.
Its darily good ventilated, so not to bad walking around. Tons of fans and a nice breeze going on all the time 🙂
Old town Hoi An is really beautifull – and also super popular. It do get a bit crowded here – quite a lot of tourists, but still there is lots of side roads and bars that are less crowded.
The whole old town is mostley low houses, lots of flowers and big doors – many windows, very green.
It do get pretty hot walking around, but there is tons of resturants and bars to stop by when the heats get to bad.
There are a few markets, cloth, fish and general stuff market.
The markets contain the usual stuff.. I have found some cobra/snake liquer in this market. But Im really unsure of Im allowed to bring it back home. Other stuff is your general spices, lots of coffee, tshirts and jewlery.. you know..
There are, as far I have been able to figure out – only 1 microbrewery in town. If you look at google maps, there are like 4, but most of them are not breweries, they just have a bit wider selection of beer – they dont brew anything. The one brewbar is just outside downtown, its been closed each time we where there, but Im planning a visit tomorrow.
Yeah – and we also found a shop that does modell ships, awsome – they had all sizes n prices, The Black Pearl was cool.
We found that many of the ad hoc street restaurants have the best food. It’s not always conveniant, there are no toilets and comfert is scondary, but the food is worth it.
Dong Xuan market was cool, this is were a lot of locals shop and there was no nagging shopkeepers. But on the other hand, they did not speak much english. We looked around for a bit and I bought a couple jars of nailpolish. I did’t discuss prize for they cost almost nothing (10000 VND). But if I wanted to I think it would have been hard for the shopkeeper didn’t say anything english.
I think I enjoyed it more than Trond, who has a limited patience for shop browsing.
We have come to the conclusion that we brought along a bit to much luggage – that combined with me buying lots of pants (if you haggel, you come down to a price you like and ghen add inn more for extra discount…I know, I have an issue)
Blazing fucking hot and humid – my lord. I was just over 1 km walk, but I did have a 14kg backpack. When we got there and found all the ATM’ out of order – having to walk 20 minutes more to a lux hotell with fancy ATM…aargh, we had an issu, cause there is lots of paperwork. And Im actually dripping.. Im also leftha ded so when moving mu hand across the paprer – writing my name and local address 5(!!) times.. the paper got soggy and I had to start again. Ah! happy days !
16kg box of clothes n shoes
All done ! They where very helpufull here, got us a box for packing.. tape.. help with forms.
We sent 16 kg, by cheapest fare.. Sea.. So the box is due in Oslo around June – that’ll be pretty exciting to see if it actually shows up 🙂
16kg was 2.460.000 Dongs in total for shipping to Norway… aprox 880 NOK
.. all of my jeans and my only summer jackiet is in that box. I should have kept one jeans back probably 🙂
Lots of places sell beer in Hoi An, the selection is pretty good – We have pretty much been trough the list at “Tap House”, situated in the middle of the tourist area.
Microbreweries are few, but I got high hopes when I found Hoi An Brewing Company on google maps. It actually looks as if they have brewing equipment here!
So we just checked into our AirBnB in Hanoi Old Quarter. Looks like a actionpacked place.
Taxi was 400 dongs and aprix 30-40 minutes, we had gotten pretty decent explanations on how to get there.. drive to nr 70 – use the ally next to the bambooshop.. three floors up. Key box !
As with lots of places in Vietnam – exterior is a bit daunting.
Maren looking forward to 3 flights of stairs
I should have gotten a picture of the alley from the main street to – but we just hurried our way trough – it was one person at a time.
It does look a bit dodgy, I have to admit – we where nevertheless sure we where on the right way. Small signs had been painted on the freshy washed stairs.
After three flights of stairs (its called flights? yeah?) im humidity close to 90% and temperatures closing in on 60c’s I was at the top! hallelujah! Looking down I felt reassured to not end up in a nasty accident – safty nets where set up.. phew!
Looks a bit… gloomy 🙂
Keys in the keybox, now – lets enter and see what we got. (allways a bit exciting!)
Absolutley spotless ! Perfect – two ac’s, tv, fridge.. clean and nice. Freshly painted walls and a super comfy sofa. Absolutley perfect for a 5 day stay!
It even has a balcony that overlooks the street. Supernice for book&beer!
Great stuff – now, time to hunt down a cold one and some food !
Books are not that easy to get hold of in south east Asia, most people will also tell you that there are probably only 4-5 decent bookshops in the whole of Vietnam.
Walking the streets here, you really dont se a loot of books – and just a very limited selection of newspapers. There are a lot written and discussed about this, but in general – Vietnameese do not read a lot of books at all.. at least very limited. Reasons for this is probably many, but suggestion that the introduction of smartphones and ipad’s from year 2 – combined with a pretty broad selection of tv entertainment, seems to be the standard explenation. I read somewhere that it might be due to the fact that its not anything interesting to read…. well.
So, anyways, enter Randy’s Book Exchange! (retired American – Im at least pretty sure he is American)
Tucked away on a small road, just a few minutes walk from the main touristy area of Hoi An. After retireing, from whatever he did before – he didnt tell, but then again – I didn’t ask., he set up shop in Hoi An. Selling mostly used paperbacks, lots of english – I saw some swedish, Probably a few other languages to!
When entering the very nice kept house, you are at once aware that you are in both a home and a shop. Not that you feel like intruding or anything, there is a nice book-store vibe to the whole place. And as the sign reads, they are open – but keeping books dry and clean on a tropical island is not easy peasy.
Great bookstore feel
Its organized and neat, different sections of crime, biographies, an excelent scifi selection and your classics.. etc. Do expect to find some photocopy books here to – buy them if you like, I personally dont have an issue with those books.
Enders Game, great book!Randy in the…80’s..? 🙂
Two floors of books, the second floor holds a lot of english, and you should be able to find something. Its allways nice to spend a few dollars on places like this, we need to keep them in business – or soon there will not be any bookshops in Hoi An at all.
Also, you get a nice souvenier to bring home with you. So when you dig it out again after a few years, you can go “..aah thats right, I got this one in Hoi An – at a cool little bookshop”… wonder if that place still is around??
We found that many of the ad hoc street restaurants have the best food. It’s not always conveniant, there are no toilets and comfert is scondary, but the food is worth it.
I think I enjoyed it more than Trond, who has a limited patience for shop browsing.
