I found the K'port of Vietnam!

I got off the bus in Hoi An (sorry! I kept calling the city Hanoi. Tired.) and stepped into a dark city with narrow, muddy streets lit up with thousands of lanterns. The city is charmingly ancient and teetering on the edge of being moldy and decrepit. But overall it's remarkably well preserved; the government has made sure the city keeps its enchantment so as to reel in the tourists and then milk them of their dollars.

That's OK; it really is. As soon as you leave the luscious, silky downtown of Hoi An and hit the grungy back alleys, it's apparent the people here are still poor. But the Vietnamese merchants' relationship with tourists is uncomfortable. I'll get into this later.


Hoi An, besides being the capital of lanterns, is also the capital of tailors. Every other shop is a clothing store. The sewing ladies often stand on the street and beg you to enter as you walk by -- and the clothes are so beautiful it's hard to resist. They'll size you up and make you whatever you want in one day, for between $15 and $35 mostly. Everything looks enticing: the silk dresses, women's blouses, men's suits, warm wool jackets. Confronted with so many glossy, glimmering smooth and satiny things, in every color imaginable, I actually felt a little sick to my stomach! I didn't buy very much because I didn't bring enough bags. And the photos below don't quite do the trick. It might be because the styles here in my photos are a little outdated.

The woman above was sweet, but I have found people who want your money in Vietnam to be quite aggressive. I can see it bothers other tourists, too. The cyclo drivers, the moped taxi drivers, the restaurant hostesses, the store merchants, the street stand ladies -- they all pester you as you walk by: Please madam, buy something! Do you want a taxi? One hour for bicycle? Welcome, come in and buy something to eat! I wonder if maybe every Vietnamese person who wants to go into business should be required to take a class on international etiquette, so they understand that they're probably losing business by hassling foreigners who mainly just want to be left alone to their private, non-communal, individualistic and miserable selves!