Shopping in Hoian

Woke up to a beautiful view of the China Sea with the man on his boat fishing, so picturesque! Spent the morning getting in and out of the pool and sea, Mark got a massage, kids played sand soccer and ping pong, and we floated in little round bamboo basket boats. Fun morning! Then it was off to town for a little shopping and lunch. First stop was custom shoes for the kids. It was so funny with all the kids picking out colors and styles as they got measured by the ladies in the shop! Then we spent about an hour in the next shop for all the boys to get custom tank tops with Hurley emblem on them and girls getting fitted for dresses. In the end we ended up not getting them as the lady in the shop wanted too much money and wasn’t really into making them, oh well! Bill, Cathy and Mark got themselves some custom blazers that were going to be delivered to our hotel by 7pm the same night, pretty cool! We walk along the town to lunch at a very nice, but totally overpriced for Vietnam, restaurant along the water. We were so hot but they brought us ice cold wash clothes with the most amazing peppermint scent! After a great and refreshing lunch we sent the dad’s and kid’s back to the resort on a little boat that we thought would take 15 minutes to get back in but ended up taking an hour. They spent the rest of the day swimming, playing cards and soccer, and just relaxing. Cathy, Brigette, Marina and Crissy proceeded to continue shopping. We went from shop to shop looking for good deals on the traditional Vietnamese outfit, called Owzi (no idea how to spell that one, pronounced owl’s eye!) We found a very sweet lady who fitted us for those outfits, dresses, and skirts. She and her family must of planned on staying up all night sewing because we left there at 5pm and she said she’d deliver us our clothes next day by 2:30pm! We then “hit up” the little street market shopping where we haggled and bargained until we wore ourselves out! We even had a lady run down the market telling everyone not to sell us these little bowls that we wanted for less than 200,000 dong which is like $10 but we wanted them for $150,000. We got so tired of trying we finally gave in and paid $10 for them but not from the first lady! We then got some large roll duffels’ to store all our purchases to go back home , so we are trekking around town at this point with big bags full of all of our buys from the day- such tourist! Side note- everyone is riding around town in mopeds flying by so you need to stay really alert to not get run over! The Vietnamese women don’t want to get sun because the darker skinned you are the more you look like a peasant working in the fields. So in order to preserve their beautiful light skin they wear heavy socks under their flip flops, full length pants, 2-3 layers of long sleeves, mask over their face and sometimes hats. Don’t forget it’s like 100 degrees here, we sweat just looking at them! Anyway back to the shopping, we end up wanting to shop for artwork but we are dying at this point, we are soooooo hot, sweaty, sticky and exhausted!! But we push through and get some more shopping done and buy some art work. We are so tired we catch a cyclo (spelling?- the little seats with the guy riding the bike) to get back to taxi area. We tried to bargin with them but at that point we were like whatever! 8 HOURS LATER…we finally make it back to the hotel for a dip in the pool and a much needed shower! We all had a nice poolside dinner and off to bed early as everyone was worn out! Tomorrow we are off to another flight to Hanoi and overnight train ride, can’t wait for the adventure to continue!