The English on the bus go whine whine whine

The bus ride was long but not actually as long as we thought that it was going to be. Which helped at the end of the journey but not at all at the beginning. It took us about an hour just to get out of the city and 90 minutes after that we had stopped for our first rest break. The guy in front of me had got on the bus and popped his seat right back as far as it would go so that he was basically leaning on my chest. I asked him to put the seat forward which he did, then slowly but surely eased it back again over the next few minutes in the hope that I wouldn't notice. At the point my breathing became constricted once more and the choco pies and cheese that I had hung on the seat in front of me had mashed firmly into my knee, I protested again. And again. Now seats back is OK when there is room to do so or when everyone is asleepy and certainly not OK when you put your seat back then lean forward to look out of the window.

There was quite some battle of wills going on and I have to say that in the end he won. Dammit!

And, while I thought that I was in a bad place, it was nothing compared to the Danish girl at the front of the bus. She was sharing her space with a man and his daughter. The daughter being young the guy hadn't bought her a seat- the understanding being that she would sit on his lap- but he just popped her on the seat next to him and edged his way into the Danish girl's seat. The only way that all three of them seemed to fit was if he put his hand on the Danish girl's knee. She wasn't comfortable with this arrangement at all and actually took the girl onto her own knee for a while just to get the bloke's hand off her.

But we arrived into Hoi An at 6.30am and mistakenly got off the bus early and confused. Suddenly we were surrounded by moto drivers - 'please you want a motorbike??'- chaos as we tried to find out 1. where we were and 2. where the hotel we wanted to be in was. Turned out that we did need some motos after all.

The hotel had been recommended by the previous one in Nha Trang and it is very nice. It has a courtyard with a pool in it and we are in a triple room for only $13. Very nice indeed. It is called Thanh Van and has some of the rudest staff I have come across in my three weeks in Vietnam. The guy on the desk accused us of being snide when we insisted on knowing the price of the room before we went to look at it. If we hadn't been so exhausted that would have been the end of that. Instead we checked in.

But weren't able to go to sleep straight away so decided to scope out the neighbourhood. Everything you have ever heard about Hoi An and its tailors is true. They are simply everywhere round here. We thought that we would have a look around and then go back for clothes later when more awake and showered. And I didn't think that I would have anything to do with them at all.

So we went and booked the sleeper train to Hanoi for Tuesday night- I have never been on a sleeper train before and am pretty excited about it. Not too sure about 16 hours on something described as hard berth and there are three beds in each stack but I am sure that it will be interesting and couldn't be worse than the bus- could it???? We also booked a trip to My Son for this morning.

We popped our heads into a couple of the tailor's shops but didn't really know what was going on. Then we found one that was really nice and welcoming and had loads of stuff that Viky liked just sitting there. It is weird. They have mannequins at the front of the shop and when you go in they give you something like the Next catalogue and you just look through and choose something for them to copy. Now I hate clothes shopping as much as the next man (not the Next man) so wasn't interested at all. Then I saw a beautiful corduroy jacket hanging on a mannequin. It is bloody hot here in Vietnam but I am off to a cooler Oz in three weeks then onto cold old New Zealand and very cold indeed USA. Before I had time to think I had been measured, had picked out some material for the jacket and two new skirts!

We went back at six last night for our first fittings and so far so good. One of the skirts that Clare was having made looked so good that I ordered another one for me. Oops! Today I have to take in my favourite shirt to have it copied so that I have something to wear with my new skirts. Second fitting is today at 4. The jacket is every bit as gorgeous as I had hoped and at $33 for a lined jacket not bad at all. The only thing is that it was almost too hot to try it on! I had to stand in front of the fan just to get cool enough to do the jacket up. I have to admit that I did feel a bit of a princess and it is very addictive. I can see why my friend, Rebecca, couldn't keep out of Hoi An last year. But I am going to limit myself to the three skirts, one jacket and maybe three shirts, depending on the price. Photos to follow!

Going out last night for a couple of beers it became obvious that we weren't going to make it to My Son today so Vicky went and moved the trip to Monday, which means that we can go out again tonight- assa! I actually had an early one last night and was tucked up in bed well before midnight. The bar we were in was playing a lot of the Bumpin classics. It is the weekends when I miss my mates the most. I was getting a little emotional so came back to read and relax. Not a bad day for one that started at 6.30!