Mon 8th Jan – Hoi An
We did silly touristy things in a silly touristy town.
This morning we walked to the silk worms museum a small distance outside the old city. The rule for Google maps travel times: halve it for private transfers, double it for walking anywhere. The idea is to demonstrate how silk clothing was made pre-industrialisation and presumably for us to buy something from the silk gift store at the end. 1 metre of silk fabric requires 1 million silk cocoons, which makes me curious about the modern day silk farms. They must have a lot of worms…
On the way back to the hotel, we pay appreciation to all the different types of touting in Hoi An. We get cornered by one lady, pushing us into the road, following us, and when we say ‘no’ to whatever she is selling, she asks ‘why not?’. Some men just weakly sputter ‘massage’, making only the briefest possible eye contact. One restaurant owner gets up from his stool, sort of ambles towards us, seems to reconsider, and walks back to his stool. A hawker selling greeting cards ends his call to arms with a rather desperate ‘please’. My favourite is the souvenir attendant who doesn’t even leave her shop, just yells, ‘buy something’ on repeat.
The afternoon highlight is getting a full body couples massage. There is nothing luxe about it, and that in itself is relaxing. As 95% of shops are, this is a converted room in a family house. There were no customers before we came, and there was a bit of milling about having tea before the massage, which all made sense when the second masseuse turned up on a pushbike, clearly having been sent a frantic text message that customers have arrived. In the meantime a group of (rabies infected?) dogs enact a canine turf war outside the shop. All staff present, we are required to take off all our clothes and while butt naked the three year old daughter peeks into our curtained off changing area. Mid massage, the portable speaker carks it and blasts white noise until someone switches it off, opening up space for the aforementioned three year old daughter’s mobile phone game sounds. My masseuse has a sniffle and is way too light, whereas on the other table Declan’s is pulverising his body. This was fun and I think we will do more.
Haha the silkworms story reminded me of silk worm assignments we used to do in school – we fed them mulberry leaves.
Has Declan changed now that he is hot property in Vietnam? He may go viral!! Lucky you snagged him early 😉
Keep up the massages you will miss them when you get back! Hope the long train trip is going ok. Miss you! Love M xx
There was in fact a primary school tour going as well while we were at the silk worm museum.
Declan was hot property is Hoi An.
My spirit hawker is the guy just sitting on his stool screaming at potential customers as they walk past.
Had a chuckle about the hawker that came over, sized you up, and based on his life time of dealing with the public decided you weren’t even worth his effort .
The massage story was a hoot. I have a couple of criteria for a good massage and I once stopped going to a good masseuse because there was an extremely loud old school ticking clock in the room which drove me crazy. I went a couple of times and considered asking them to remove the clock but in the end it was just easier to stop going. I’m guessing your massage room was not air conditioned
To me this blog reveals more about Declan’s feelings then it does about how the ladies of Vietnam feel about him.
Were you happy with the pyjamas.
Dad, what item would you like to sell as a street hawker?
When dealing with the hawkers I think the best approach has been when we learnt the Vietnamese word for “no”. Even though we’re clearly tourists for some reason they walk away when you say no in Vietnamese.
I am glad you liked the massage story. It’s a really funny experience and just not what you’d think of when getting a massage in Australia. But then it also costs like $15aud each for an hour so it’s never going to be the same. That’s funny about the clock. That must annoy every single person. I wonder if anyone has ever mentioned that before. You should send it to Larry David as a script idea.
The PJs were cute but the waist was too tight for me. I tried to tell the tailor but she just said the elastic would get less tight over time.. I think we’d already paid and she had a low care factor.
Good question about me being a hawker.
At first I couldn’t think of an answer but then I realised that I would need to eliminate types of products to arrive at an answer
All food is out. When bored I would just eat whatever I was selling and go broke.
Anything large and/or heavy is eliminated due to my laziness and advanced age.
I need something small and light. Maybe pirated cd’s, movies or small watches and electronic items.
The going rate in Coffs is $100 per hour cash. As they obviously don’t pay tax or gst so that is really like $160 per hour. I find both price points too expensive and have slowed down how many times I go. I agree that is the plot line for a funny episode of curb. You could weave in jokes about disrobing, his dislike of curtain oils due to their smell, heavy breathing of the masseuse or maybe their inane chatter when you don’t want to engage in small talk. Whenever I see anyone new for a massage I always tell them at the start that I don’t like to talk during the massage. I try to be polite when telling them this but sometimes I wonder if they think I am being rude.
Don’t worry about the pyjamas. You paid for an experience. The product is a bonus. With that type of attitude in customer service that lady would fit into the Coffs retail scene quite nicely.
You’d be the only person selling pirated cds I think!! You’d need to invest heavily in a quality shade umbrella.