Shop 'till you drop, then frolick in mud

Okay ladies, time to shop till you drop!

Hoi'an, in the central part of Vietnam is known for shopping. Not just any kind of shopping, but tailored shopping. You can get anything personally made - suits, blouses, skirts, dresses, you name it. We even met someone that lost a swimsuit and had himself a tailored swimsuit made. Nice. So yes, Char and I went a little crazy. We came into Hoi'an knowing about the tailored clothes and decided we wanted a suit for interviews to come, and maybe a dress pant for work. For me, 3 coats, a suit with skirt, pants, a dress, and 3 blouses later, I was still itching for more. But Char held me back (I had to hold her back also) and we stopped. Yes, these are bargain prices and its all handmade and tailored to you, but it adds up. I gotta say, its hard to walk away sometimes because you keep finding things that you like. But alas, we survived

What to do besides shop and getting fitted? Hoi'an happens to be another UNESCO World Heritage Site (which seems like every town we go to these days). Its definitely historic and because of the location by the Thu Bon River, it served as a trading port to traders from Europe, China, and Japan. So you get everything from Japanese style bridges,

to Chinese pagoda's (I think I've shown enough of those), to unique long, narrow tube houses. It definitely has a historic feel to it and is a lot smaller and more chill than Hanoi. You can actually cross the street and not almost get killed. There is also the Central market, a hectic and frantic market that sells all kind of food and clothes (of course):

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Unfortunately, right before we came here, there was massive rain in the central region and flooding. We were worried before coming here and were in fact greeted with drenching rain, but it has since cleared up. Unforunately, here is what we say when we went by the riverfront to grab something to eat:

Which is too bad because I hear the riverfront has some great restaurants. But all things considered, the flooding has definitely caused some destruction and lost buisiness

Soo... not much else to report from our end! Just lots of shopping! Shopping! And more shopping!

Oh, and obviously we weren't going to carry all this stuff home, so as I was packaging up stuff to ship, I decided to send this also. He'll arrive in 3-4 months by seamail:

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So after Hoian we took an overnight bus to Nha Trang, this beach town that we had been looking forward to seeing since we entered Vietnam. We arrived to a beautiful sunny day. Happily, yet still groggy from not sleeping from the 12 hour bus ride, we took a nice walk by the beach and soaked in the fresh air and listened to the waves crash. It was soooooooooooooooooooooo nice and we were super excited that it was sunny. And of course happy to be by the beach. I don't know what it is, just being by the water makes me feel sooo relaxed and happy. Being that we don't have beach towels, we decided to lounge around and read on the rooftop of our hotel instead. It was soo relaxing and chill. Finally! Then, we had heard about the Thap Ba Hot Springs where there are tubs of warm mud and mineral baths. How could we not go to that after our stressful time in Hoi'an having clothes tailored and being re-fitted a thousand times over? We tend to find lots of excuses to treat ourselves and do the "well, we deserve it." ha ha!

It was everything we thought it was going to be and more! In an organized fashion, we showered in hot mineral water and then went to these mud tubs, which are full of sodium silicate chloride, which is supposed to help the good 'ol joints and stuff. We hung out there, rubbed mud over our bodies, and enjoyed the nice sunny day. Its kinda cool hanging out in the mud, I tell ya! Then we shuttled to a shower to clean ourselves from the mud (and umm... the mud was kind of hard to get all out!), then another shower to get to these hot spring little tubs. We soaked in there for awhile and just relaxed. It was soo nice!! Finally, we were shuttled in a large hot pool area to finish off our afternoon of beauty treatment.

Here's me maxin' and relaxin' in the mud:

We were sooo relaxed after that that we had a quick bite to eat, and then napped and watched a movie ("the Rock" was on. It was pretty good!). And finished off the evening with a delicious seafood dinner by the beach. It was perfect weather, comfortable in tank tops and a slight breeze from the sea. Ahhh... we told ourselves, "this is the life!"

But then of course today woke up to cloudiness and showers. Hmm... I knew we spoke to soon! So besides beach there is not much else in Nha Trang so we literally lounged around today going from cafe's to restaurants, checking the internet, and are about to take another overnight but to Ho Chi Minh City, otherwise known as Saigon. At least I can say we are rested!!!!