Nothing is REALLY free...

At the Hoi An Chic Hotel.

Gardens of the Hoi An Chic Hotel.

Reception area.

The view at breakfast.

This morning after a lovely breakfast at the Hoi An Chic (see above) we decided to head to the beach, as Hoi An is also considered a great beach destination. We rode our mopeds to the Ang Ham beach, which our hotel and Lonely Planet had recommended as the best beaches. As on any beach, there were tons of lounge chairs, and many women running after tourists imploring them to sit at their "free beach chairs." When we inquired about the beach chairs, a woman informed us that if we sit in her chairs we have to have lunch at her restaurant. Not exactly free, but we agreed anyway since we were planning to have lunch on the beach anyway.

The beach was a lovely, long stretch of soft sand and nice ocean breezes. Many lounge chairs were full of Eurpoean sunbathers and loungers; we haven't seen many other Americans here in Vietnam.

Lounge chairs on the beach.

 

Fishing boats parked on the beach.

Me by some fishing boats.

The water was pretty calm, but it was surprisingly cold. Gavin and I played around in the water, and noticed that we could count on one hand how many people were actually in the water besides us. I guess everybody agreed with me on the temperature of the water. Plus the cooling ocean breezes made sure we didn't get hot, even when sitting in the sun.

After about an hour on the beach or less, we did as promised and had lunch in the restaurant that owned our beach chairs. We were the only people eating there, and the meal was unimpressive, but the view over the beach and ocean was great!

Lunch in the ocean breezes...

 

I make friends with the local wildlife. :)

After lunch we scootered back to the hotel for a quick shower, then headed to the tailor for yet another fitting.

The coat I picked, still needs a little bit more adjustment... But look! The sleeves are long enough!!

 

Gavin scooters in the rice paddies near our hotel.

 

Me on my scooter.

After our fitting we continued to wander around Old Town. We found a shop where a man was chiseling wood plaques for decoration, and we bought one for Gavin's office.

We bought a much smaller plaque than this, but this was what he was working on.

Also in our wanderings, I saw an AWESOME dress in one of the many tailor shops. I tried it on off the mannequin, and it actually fit pretty well. But because it was their "window" dress, it was a little dingy and had some discoloring from where they had ironed it. They offered me 30% off the price if I bought the one of the mannequin, but I asked if they could make it for me overnight, and they said no problem. I am a little nervous about the quality since according to Lonely Planet a lot of tailors in Hoi An aren't that good and use low quality materials, and this place wasn't one of the recommended tailors from either our hotel or Lonely Planet...

After doing our final fitting for our clothing at Yaly, evening was starting to fall, so we wandered down to the waterfront in time to watch the sunset. We also picked up Gavin's made-to-order laptop bag and my three pairs of made-to-order shoes, all of which came out really nice!

Sunset over the bridge.

 

A whole tour group on cyclos. The amount of cyclos in Hoi An made for plenty of joking about lazy tourists. :)

 

A woman in a boat calls out to tourists to get them to pay for a ride.

 

A big fish net in the river.

 

The riverfront.

We had dinner at yet another unimpressive restaurant that Gavin chose A. because it had a 2nd floor overlooking the river and B. it was completely empty. After we sat down several more tourists joined us on the top floor. This place also had a happy hour with 2 for 1 drinks, and these drinks were actually real drinks rather than watered down as has been the trend in Vietnam with our happy hours/free drinks.

2nd floor restaurant overlooking the river.

After dinner I had convinced Gavin to have a massage with me at Palmarosa Spa, the spa recommended with a big star in Lonely Planet. A 125 minute massage was only about $35!! We even got to be in the same room. Gavin is pretty uncomfortable with massages, but I think he definitely relaxed during this one as he started snoring, woke up and apologized. :) I think I fell asleep several times myself after my therapist flipped me over onto my back. :) They were really good massages!

Ginger tea and cold washcloths before the massage.

After the massages we were definitely in no shape to do anything but head back to the hotel, and barely were awake enough to drive the scooters back! We arrived back at the hotel to see that Yaly had delivered all our finished clothing to the hotel. We woke ourselves up enough to try everything on, then crashed into bed. :) Tomorrow we saw goodbye to Vietnam.

 

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