In the Tailor's Sign

The day was once again all about the tailors. At 9 AM, we had to head down to the first shop to try on the clothes before they finished sewing them. Then at 10, we had to be at the next shop, so time was tight. On our way to the tailors, we stumbled upon a great place for breakfast. Their buffet cost 30,000 dong per person. Feeling full, we made our way to the first shop, where the clothes turned out really nice. Honny decided to order an extra set of a shirt and pants. We stuck to the schedule, and by 10, we were at the next shop. It turned out they were undergoing renovations, so we had to sit in the back room. I wondered if they had made a good profit from our orders and could now afford to upgrade their shop. There were also some other people waiting to try on their clothes, so we had quite a bit of waiting time. The owner offered ice cream, snacks, and water to make the wait more bearable. Finally, we got to try on the clothes, which looked really good, so Honny ordered another shirt. Later in the day, we would return to the shop to try on the clothes again, so we had some time to explore the city. We rode down to the river, where there was a large market. Not all the streets in the city are paved, which made it feel like stepping back in time. At the market, we bought some chopsticks for 90,000 dong. We thought we had haggled enough and scoped out the terrain, but unfortunately, we found the same chopsticks cheaper just a little later. We also passed by a restaurant that offered cooking classes, and we booked a spot with them for later that day. It cost 5 USD per person, but we would get to eat the food we made. Now we were in a hurry. First, we had to go back to both tailor shops to try on the clothes before the cooking class started at 6 PM. We were happy with the final adjustments on the clothes, and as we cycled away from the shop, we also had our bags full of souvenirs. We got four ties and a bag for free. On our way back to the hotel with our bags, we made a quick stop at a shop that had made a bag for my grandmother with her name embroidered on it for 30,000 dong. Finally, we made it back to the hotel, where we had just enough time for a quick shower before heading out again. Here, we shower about three times a day because the heat is really intense. We zoomed off on our bikes, nearly running into Michelle and John. We hadn’t seen them since the Mekong trip. The cooking class was great, but unfortunately, we didn’t get to make all the food ourselves. They were very eager and did a lot of the cooking for us. We did get all the recipes, though, so we can practice when we get home.