Hoi An is known as being the tailor capital of Vietnam. If you want custom-made clothes, this is the town to get them in. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage site due to the old quarter. Lewis had been wanting at some point in Asia to stay at a really nice hotel since the prices are so low compared to home, so we decided to do it here.
If you've walked a block and haven't seen ten tailor shops, you aren't in Hoi An.
The journey to Hoi An from Dalat was no fun at all. We had to leave Dalat at 12:30 in the afternoon on a small bus, arrive in Nha Trang at 5 PM, and board the sleeper bus at 6:30 PM, eventually arriving in Hoi An at 6 in the morning. We got some dinner and a massage during our layover in Nha Trang, and my only impression of the town is that it's not somewhere I would bother visiting. It seems like a trashy beach town and is known for some inexplicable reason for being full of Russian tourists. During a quick walk through the night market, we heard more Russian than anything, and most of the tour offices also have their signs written in Russian. Go figure.
As I mentioned, our hostel owner in Dalat had hooked us up with a lift from the bus drop off point when we arrived in Hoi An. His sister-in-law and another girl were waiting with motorbikes and were so friendly. Of course, they do own a tailor shop, Remy Tailor, and immediately took us there. Since the bus had only had paid wifi, I hadn't had any time to book our hotel, so they let us use the free wifi at the shop, made us breakfast and coffee for free, and of course showed us all of their clothing books and had Lewis ordering suits within fifteen minutes.
I was planning on getting a suit anyway and knew exactly what I wanted, so I ordered mine too and had my measurements taken but declined all other sales pitches because I was going to take a look at other tailor shops first to compare before I rushed into buying any more clothes. On principle.
Lasenta Boutique Hotel
During this time, I had decided on a hotel to book us into, and the girls gave us a ride over there. It was only a few blocks away. It was a 4 star hotel called Lasenta Boutique Hotel & Spa, and it was perfect! I even opted for a better room (at only about $10 more than the cheapest), a deluxe double with rice paddy view. We were greeted by the staff all in very nice white uniforms. They couldn't check us in just yet since it was about 8 AM but took all our details, let us leave our bags, and gave us a welcome drink and cool cloth.
Since we had some time to wait, we went up to the fourth floor where the pool was, and WOW. There's this infinity pool just overlooking beautiful green rice paddies all the way to the horizon. Definitely impressed! We used the very nice bathrooms to take a much-needed and awesome shower, and by the time we went back down, our room was already ready.
Each floor had a walkway around the open center looking down on the lobby courtyard. Our room was gigantic!
The bed was the comfiest, the shower was fantastic, and we were almost like important people with money for once. Minus the actual money, I mean. Lewis checked his bank account first thing and freaked out because he realized he couldn't quite afford those suits he just bought. He even tried to cancel one, but it was too late for that. Meanwhile, I had just paid in full for the nice room (90 pounds for two nights- nothing in the UK, but a lot if you're a backpacker!) and really needed him to pay me back half. So more like we were playing pretend that we were grown-ups with money. Same same but different, right?
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the reception staff suspected between us asking them to reheat our leftover lunch for dinner in their microwave and foregoing their expensive laundry service to leave it with a guy at a street stall on the corner... which he then left at reception when we didn't pick it up on time. With their Lasenta bag. To be fair, they were really nice and never told us they knew we were poor.
Tailors
My biggest suggestion if you're headed to Hoi An and getting tailor-made clothes is to know exactly what you want and order it all at the same time from one singular tailor. We easily spent the majority of our daytime hours running back and forth to the tailors for fittings causing us to not be able to see a whole lot of the town. The main problem was me. Lewis's tux, three-piece suit, and shirts were all ready for the first fitting by that same afternoon, as was my sexy, bitching suit. I was so beyond pleased with it that I wanted to order more from Remy.
Think I'll stick with this "bra only" look for interviews.
However, I thought I'd shop around for my dress. We headed down another street and the amount of tailor shops is overwhelming. I didn't have a phone to check the reviews for each one online as we passed, so I'd just looked at a bunch before leaving the hotel and hoped I'd recognize some names. The first one we came across that was familiar was Yaly Couture, a big-name popular tailor that our hotel had given us a 10% off ticket for.
Most tailors in Hoi An are small street-side shops. The clothes and materials are all on display, and there's one room. Yaly was past a gated entrance in a big two-story building with entire rooms full of tailors at work. It was definitely a large-scale operation, and this wasn't even their only location.
I had no idea what I wanted. I looked through book after book of dresses and ended up giving them a vague idea. I knew exactly how the top should look but not so much the bottom. I figured since they did this all the time, they'd make something flattering. I was already kind of put off by Yaly though because the sales associates seemed totally disinterested and weren't big on suggestions or advice. They disappeared for ages at a time while I was looking.
Then when I said I wanted a green dress, they only took me to one section out of their shelves and shelves of material and showed me one fabric option in two shades of green. I asked if they didn't have anything else (while looking around this freaking library of fabric), and she led me to one other shelf with a couple other options but said she didn't think they'd be as good for the dress. Whatever, ok, so I went with the first fabric she'd shown me.
That was done and I wasn't coming back until the following morning, so we went to our last fitting at Remy. I had been thinking about this wool coat they'd been trying to sell me all day, and after they knocked the price down to $80 I decided to order it.
That meant two tailor appointments the following day... and I hated the dress at Yaly. It was so ill-fitting and wasn't flattering at all. They only gave me one idea as to how to make the middle tighter and more fitted, so I felt that was the only option even though it wasn't something I really wanted. I was supposed to come back in a few hours.
Meanwhile, my coat had come out perfectly overnight, so I continued to be happy with Remy and was wishing I'd gotten my dress there.
When I went back to Yaly, I just hated the dress even more, and the tailors weren't very nice about it. I was so overwhelmed and stressed because we were leaving the next day and I did not want to spend $70 on this thing I wouldn't buy on a clearance rack. They told me I could start from scratch one time for free or just walk away, so after deliberating for way too long I just walked out. I wouldn't recommend them at all.
Then of course, I went back to Remy for my final coat fitting and asked them if they could do a dress by the next morning despite it being about 8 PM. They said they could, I picked from a much wider variety of material options, and they hopped right on their motorbike and went to get the fabric. The dress was ready to try on by 10 AM the next morning, was great, they sent it back for a couple more alterations, and it was ready in an hour. I even last minute asked for a second slit at the bottom and they did it for me and drove the finished dress over to our hotel so I didn't even have to come back again. They're awesome! If you're looking for a helpful, friendly, efficient, quality tailor in Hoi An, Remy is a great choice.
Hoi An Sightseeing
Our hotel offered free bike rental, a bonus that I always like in a place of accommodation. We took them out twice to cycle around town in between tailor runs. Hoi An is pretty adorable. Parts of the old quarter are for pedestrians and cyclists only.
There are colorful lanterns on strings, boats along the river, a street-long food market, Japanese temple, and Japanese covered bridge. The buildings are pale yellow. It's all very cute.
We also biked quite a long way (maybe 20-30 minutes, but it was on a tiring incline) to An Bang Beach, supposedly the nicest beach in Hoi An. It was very pretty but the waves were way too high for me. There were plenty of tourists, but the beach stretched on for ages in either direction, so you wouldn't have trouble finding a quieter area.
The best part is probably biking around the countryside areas and seeing the water buffalo out in the paddies. You might even see a herder guiding them around or sitting on top of them.
We enjoyed our last morning after our final payment and fitting at Remy by having a cocktail in the infinity pool and then heading on to Phong Nha. It was a nice little luxury vacation in our fancy hotel, and we now had some new clothes to drag around for the rest of our trip too. I'm sure there's more to do as well, but as we were on a time crunch, that's all we managed. However, after the rush through Dalat, even two days seemed like a long, relaxing time in this pretty town.
