I point to the white Fred Perry sneakers in the catalogue and say to the shopkeeper, "That's what I want." She smiles, tells me they're a good choice and, if I'd like, the ones she's going to whip up will bear the name Tim Roxborogh on the tongue instead of Mr Perry.
Twenty-four hours and $34 later I have a new pair of self-named sneakers, a ripsnorter of a silk dress shirt and a replica pair of my favourite shorts.
I can see why the girls were so keen to get to Hoi An, Southeast Asia's self-proclaimed tailoring capital with close to 200 cheap, brisk and frequently brilliant tailor shops all within a quick bike ride of each other. And this place has one of the best beaches in the country.
After a couple of days of temple-hopping in the picturesque city of Hue, our intrepid group of 10 have moved south to a place regarded as even more enticing. We are one week into a three-week trek across Indochina and the women among us have been harping on about this part of the trip since day one.
AdvertisementHoi An is the sort of town people visit having done their homework, prepared with photos and patterns of clothes.
My new Aussie mate, Swanney (all good Australians go exclusively by nicknames), and I had been ambivalent about the tailoring, but after just one afternoon we both succumb, he to a black rendition of his khaki cargo shorts and I to the Tim Roxborogh Fred Perrys.
Hoi An is home to 80,000 of Vietnam's 80 million people and is less than an hour south of the country's third largest city, Danang. So other than the lure of clothes on the cheap, what is it that draws the foreigners in their millions to this small coastal city?
We knew from the map that it was indeed coastal, but we also knew from the idyllic-looking but jellyfish-riddled Lang Co beach a couple of hundred kilometres away that the presence of water is no guarantee of beach paradise.
Hopping on our bikes ($1.50 a day to hire) we follow the river to the beach.
The road by the river is pure 'Nam, a description and concept not everyone in the group grasps with equal enthusiasm. "Look how the palms and the jungle are reflected in the water, this is so Apocalypse Now."
A "pure 'Nam moment" is basically anything that looks straight out of a Vietnam War film, fitting into that romantically corny notion of the steamy Southeast Asian landscape where beauty and ugliness, prosperity and poverty are all there and thoroughly intoxicating.
With pure 'Nam moments on both sides - the movie-set river to the right, the French colonial buildings and street-side stalls to the left - we ride like the oversized and awkward group of foreigners we are. It's a 15-minute bike ride on flat ground to the coast.
more info->>Vietnam: Sneaker preview - 30 Sep 2008 - NZ Herald: Travel destinations and experiences, news and Information from New Zealand and around the World
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