Hoi An

Hoi An is my danger zone. With its famed specialty in custom tailoring, there are so many ways to spend money.

People also seem to be genuinely nice here. So far my interactions with Vietnamese have been to fend off ostensibly polite hotel, taxi and boat touts and peddlers. Conversations usually just revolve around prices or no thanks, I don't want your hotel/sunglasses/motorbike/boat. Today, I had several conversations with random Vietnamese girls about the difficulties of speaking English, Europeans and their studies at the university. It was pretty awesome.

I also found a really cool restaurant ("Sunshine") right across the street from my hotel. The food was pretty good that I went back for dinner, where the mom gave me a larger portion because I "looked hungry." They were just so genuinely friendly and interested in me (rather than my wallet.) After stuffing my face, I talked with the university-age daughter for a while.

At first I thought that she and her mom were mocking me when they complemented my dark skin. Every Vietnamese girl goes outside with a giant hat, gloves and literal face mask/scarf to shield their skin against the sun. As with most Asians, fair skin is a premium here so complements about my tan skin can seem like BS. They seemed pretty genuine about it. "Yeah, girls here don't like dark skin but it looks good on you."

My adventures in Hoi An today didn't just involve eating. I took a bicycle out and explored the town. Torrential rain started so I tried to kill time by wandering through tailor shops until it stopped. However, it seemed like daylight was going to end before the rain did so I blundered my way through the rain on the bicycle. You know, I thought it was scary to be a pedestrian in Vietnam but I think it's scarier to be behind the wheel (of any moving vehicle) because now you have to watch out for the