After a 16 hour overnight bus journey from Da Lat, we arrived in Hoi An (side note: when taking long overnight busses, bring Benadryl or something similar to help you sleep). Hoi An is well known for its numerous tailor shops where you can get clothes, suits, shoes, handbags, and more custom made for much, much cheaper than you could ever get in the U.S. I got a blue dress and leather wallets for both my mom and dad. Here is the dress I got made–please excuse the wrinkles!
While in Hoi An, my eyebrows were in desperate need of some attention. A Vietnamese woman named Emma came up to me while I was browsing the markets and said she would thread them for two dollars. I’ve never had my eyebrows threaded before, but considering that a wax costs $9 at home, I was sold. My thoughts on threading? I was pleased with the results, but OUCH. I literally started tearing up from the pain, to which Emma replied “No pain, no gain”. We had another exchange that went something like this:
Emma: Do you have a boyfriend?
Me: Nope.
Emma: Well, you will when I’m through with you.
Paige and I decided to go on a little date night one night that we were there. We walked down to the river front, and were absolutely delighted with what we saw. Hoi An at night time is pretty magical with the colorful lanterns that dot both the streets and the water. I wasn’t able to capture any halfway decent pictures on my iPhone, but the below picture is exactly what it looked like. I had a “woah, I’m in Asia” moment when taking in the red and yellow tones and dragon figures in the background scenery.
We went to dinner and then to one of the bars for hookah and mojitos. A tip for bar hopping in Hoi An: try to go with a group of 5 or more because there are loads of different deals you can get when you have a group of that size. We ended up seeing one of the girls we met on our very first night in Asia at our hostel in Bangkok. We also met an Australian or New Zealand guy (can’t remember) who ended up being the third wheel on our date for about 59 minutes 🙂
Want to know how to chill a bottle of wine in a pinch? Stick it into the hostel’s freezing pool, obviously.
Glamour shot.
Where to stay in Hoi An:
We stayed at the Hoa Binh Hotel for $7 USD/night. The Sunflower Hotel was another popular choice amongst backpackers.
If you could pick any city in the world to have date night in, which one would it be?
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