Friday 28 February 2025 (continued)
As usual, hunger wasn’t far from our minds so we wandered the area looking for food. There was plenty of action at an open-air bar, filled with very attractive young people of all nationalities. The 70-year-old was well out of place. It was getting close to 10pm and businesses were closing. Dexter asked a woman at the edge of the beer garden atmosphere where we could eat. Turned out she had a sort of pop-up restaurant right where we stood and she reopened the place to serve us.
Dexter ordered the traditional Hoi An cuisine: White Roses, curiously described as Vietnam’s ravioli; Cat Lau which was stiff pieces of meat in a delicious broth; and Chicken Rice. I had a La Rue beer, Dexter a water and we were ecstatic. This town was going to be great.
Shops had been closing from 10pm and I had mentally shut down at 7.45 but a hidden generator got the power back up. I had just enough energy to do some wandering and we found a place selling gelato. The night couldn’t have got any better. I had my go-to flavour, Nocciola, paired with a scoop of Earl Grey. It was very good, then bed beckoned.
Saturday 1 March 2025
The previous week had been arduous. A sleep in was needed. We awoke at 6 and couldn’t wait to get into Hoi An life.
Scheduled today was tailoring, shoes being made, a gold wedding band being ordered for my upcoming wedding and a tattoo. Even while at my most defenceless the last was never happening.
It had occurred to me that Dexter hadn’t actually exercised since we had met in Hanoi and I inquired as to whether this would be a problem when he returned to working his gym? He explained that this would not but getting a suit tailored was another matter. If his arms had lost maximum definition since leaving Perth, it would not be the usual Dexter physique that a tailor would be measuring. That is, when he pumped iron on his return, his arms would bulk back up and become too tight in the new suit.
We caught a taxi to a recommended gym – really his research on this trip had proved masterful – and Dexter planned to work out for 60 to 90 minutes to get what he referred to as the ‘pump’ – a Schwarzeneggeran phrase from the master, Arnie. Apparently, by lifting weights and working out, creates the accompanying feeling of muscle growth and the satisfaction of hard work.
Not being an iron-pumping guy and much more inclined towards breakfast, I went for a walk. In a low mist, I explored a long street, dominated by commercial buildings. The gym was sited in the suburbs so there were no tourist attraction places here. You ate and drank what the neighbours had.
Traffic was light and the only semblance of somewhere to eat was a garden-style cafe called Le Te Xuan At Ty (‘The Low Spring something’ according to my translator). It was surrounded by a waist-high, ochre-coloured wall and festooned with yellow blooms in pots. Four men sat at a table as very loud and not-to-my-taste local music played. I ventured forth.
Not far down was a whole pig, spit roasting over a tray of coals on the footpath outside another cafe. It was worth a photo but not a stop and I eventually reached an intersection where left looked more engaging than straight ahead. I passed a few places, with breakfast televisions blaring to almost no customers and one cafe with no one in sight but the TV showed a silent screen of birds hopping about. It was here I returned after walking nearly to the next intersection.
Good fortune smiled on me. I was desperate to use the loo and found the female proprietor hosing out the cafe’s bathroom facilities. Aaagh! Relief. I ordered a cappuccino, which was nothing like the real thing but still tasted really good, and a beef dish with rice and egg. Completely sated, I returned to the gym to find Dexter sinking his second protein drink .
We returned to the hotel, showered and packed some laundry that wouldn’t prove a burden to carry before beginning our day’s shopping. En route, we made a booking at Spice Route on Nguyen Thai Hoc. We got the table which had been recommended, directly overlooking the lake onto a nighttime tourist highlight not to be missed. What I saw was a comfortable lounge area at left and long, well-stocked bar at right with a grand piano beyond that. The long hall revealed French doors to the outside balcony and a staircase nearby promised even more.
At Yaly Couture – highly commended by Liv’s mother, Liz, and Dexter’s client, Vivien – we were attended by Clara. My quest was for a suit in a shade of blue as close to black without being so. Clara took me through the cloth price range from US$140 (A$225) to US$450 (A$725) and Dexter immediately lost interest. He needed shirts and a suit was going to be a luxury. The prices brought this idea to a halt. Many of the more expensive materials were too shiny but Clara knew her job. In the mid-range was just what I wanted and we settled on this. She then measured me for the suit, two white shirts and two pair of chinos. It was skilful, efficient, cost-effective and a pleasure.
All up, this came to A$705. Probably not cheap by Hoi An standards but I’ve always rated a good shirt and good pair of chinos worth $100 each. Take these off the bill and I was buying a tailored suit for $305. It was a bargain.
Dexter waited on a bench outside the store and later said two tourist groups with a leader had walked past while he sat. “Both guides pointed to the shop and said ‘This is the best tailor in Hoi An’,” As Bruce McAvaney would say: “But we know that.”
Another tailor tip was Kim Only in the nearby Hoi An Cloth Market. This was a Fremantle Markets-style layout with individual traders occupying their open air, equal spaces. Kim was an ebullient woman who measured Dexter for a stylish pale blue shirt and then he asked me if he should get another. My retort was that I always have a dark navy business shirt in my wardrobe so he opted for one of those. The material looked so good, I ordered one too.
At the same location but 50 metres away across a laneway was Quynh Nhu, whose business card promised: “Shoes, sandal, hand bag, modern fashion, reasonable price.” It was all of the advertised plus the friendliest family of mother and daughters you would find in Asia.
While I waited for Dexter to get Birkenstocks recreated, two pretend-bikie looking Australians came into the market and sat about 20m away in another shoe store. Not long after, the proprietor and one of the couriers, whose job it was to ferry items to customers’ hotels or pick up completed items from where the leather was being sewn, got into a heated argument. Standing right above the two bemused men were two younger women hammering verbally at each other. They were oblivious of the two and it was the only sign of anger I had witnessed on the tour.
Dexter and I were, despite this, in a perfectly harmonious atmosphere. While the mother fussed about us or hovered over her charges to ensure they were doing everything right, the three family members chattered effervescently. Between the two of us, Dexter and I designed an overnight travel bag and the women assisted us further with a laptop case.
I had a pair of Italian loafers and asked with some disbelief if they could replicate these in one day. Sadly they couldn’t do the weave at the front of the shoe but found a very good sample match to the originals to do the whole shoe in dark brown leather. How can this be done? My loafers had been reduced from $1000 to $330 at a Parker’s sale. My new ones were going to cost $60. The shop was another Liz tip.
The banter continued and, while my feet were being measured with Dexter predictably videoing this exciting occurrence, Mama had found a book of designs for bags. While trying without success to get his attention, the sound on the video picked her voice up, loudly expressing: “Catalogue?…Boy!” as she impatiently tapped him on the shoulder.
We wanted to support these women as much as possible so asked if they had a friend who took in laundry. We were pointed to Bong, a home service not too far away and on the route home.
Liz’s recommendations were dominant and next stop was Lac Viet jewellery design on Hoang Dieu Street for my gold wedding ring. Progress so far: a Cheezel; a cheap band I would never wear; an attractive facsimile for $6 at La La Land; to $450 for an inscribed 9-carat gold ring. Dexter pushed this escalation all the way.
“What message does it send Annie that you don’t want to wear a wedding ring?” Once again, he was right. I would do anything to make this woman happy and selfishness doesn’t fit into that act. Her real estate nickname, ‘McFanny’ became the inscription. All our orders were complete. All needed a day to be finished. Incredible. We headed to Bong and dropped off the washing to a woman who had been waiting for us on the street near the alleyway to her house.
It was time to eat and Dexter had done well to survive on two protein shakes since his early rise. On the way we found ourselves drawn to a fish market. All those cooking shows I’ve watched rolled into one Hoi An location. The chef-presenter wandering the paths extolling the virtues of fresh seafood and then returning to the villa to prepare something magnificent. Not for me. I was on holiday.
Trying to be fair, he suggested Ganesh, a restaurant his friend Rohan had said was the best Indian food he had ever eaten. I countered with if it’s that good, let’s save it for lunch or dinner tomorrow night? We went to Nu eatery for a snack-style meal as it was getting into the afternoon and we had a special restaurant booked for dinner.
We returned to the hotel and had a swim. Again the unmanned bar? Five tourists were lazing on sun lounges and we added to the crew. A full bar with one person serving could have been doing brisk business but was obviously considered unnecessary by the proprietors. We slept, showered and headed out refreshed. We walked in a loop and turned into the pedestrian-only street headed for Spice Route. There were more scooters and motor bikes in here than on Ha Giang. Shops and market stalls abutted the lake and it seemed most of Hoi An was promenading…yet the vehicles just kept on coming in both directions.
Spice Route seemed a very long way down this path but when we eventually reached it, a haven of sorts awaited. Shown upstairs and our table was hard against the railing overlooking the lake where a plethora of craft ferried tourists. The spectacle being that as dusk settles, lamps are lit on all these boats and a magical atmosphere created. It was. So far Rohan, whose recommendation it was, had a perfect score.
Dexter ordered a passionfruit whiskey sour and I had a vodka & orange, having been thwarted in my quest for the same on one of our plane rides. A check of the bill records we had white rose dumplings, chicken & ginger dumplings, seafood spring rolls, Hoi An chicken rice, So Diep (scallops) and a green mango salad. We were hungry. It was excellent and expensive by Viet standards but the two go together like Geelong and finals football. Worth every penny and the light show to boot.
Downstairs, the piano man, an Englishman, wasn’t exactly Joelesque but making a fair fist of it and I eschewed Dexter’s offer of looking for a marijuana bar across the lake. While he wandered away to attractions which included the Bob Marley Bar, I sat on a stool at Spice Route’s saloon and waited to be served a drink…and waited. There were two staff doing everything possible but serve alcohol. While waiting I requested Both Sides Now and the pianist played the melody. “I don’t know the words.” I have always wanted to sing this song out loud and in public but my courage deserted me. You could blame lack of alcohol service? I blamed lack of ability.
Finally I was asked if I wanted a drink and ordered a Grand Marnier on ice. Boredom had me looking at the dessert range and passionfruit chocolate mousse stood out. Five minutes of modest gesticulation and eye contact proved worthless. When finally served, it took another five minutes for the bar person to tell me “Sorry, we’ve run out.”
Dexter returned, I told him all my news and he related his adventures – again ensuring before imbibing that he wasn’t the target of some form of DEA entrapment. We walked home and sat by the pool and I decided to finish off the last of my Cointreau. The combination of weed and booze in the respective participants prompted a lot of father-son, man-to-man talks and a few old stories got a run for the umpteenth time. It was great.
As we entered our room, our neighbour was on his balcony entertaining another young lady. “Different one from last night,” Dexter observed. This romantic duo soon had company and a noisy party began. In his haste to tell them that we couldn’t sleep and the pool area was more appropriate, Dexter had forgotten the latch was across the door jam. He almost tugged the door from its hinges as he attempted to open it. By the time he poked his head and body outside the door, he had their complete attention. They moved immediately and silently. The upper body impact and unintended angry-looking entrance had worked a treat.
PART VIII ENDS
I WRIGHT 