After yet another substantial breakfast (banana pancakes, yoghurt with rambutans and giant passionfruit and 10 sorts of pastries!) we packed up our washing and our clothes to be copied and headed for the tailors.
First stop was to decide which of the persistent laundry ladies, clustered around the gate of the Hotel, we would give our laundry to. We chose Miss Anh and for the princely sum of $8 she washed, ironed and made my bag of clothes smell nice by the end of the day. Even ironed my undies!
The washing done we continued on our mission to order clotehs to Yaly, the best-known of all of the tailors. When we arrived we were surrounded by girls all dressed in identical Ao Gais: purple and white.
For the next couple of hours chaos ensued with lots of "Have you got that top you wore the other night - it would look good in this material!" and "Jan, these colours would be great on you!" and " What do you think of this on me???". As we know each other so well there was a lot of useful criticism and a lot of frank and honest judgements provided.
Then there was the measuring up process. Who knew that there were so many places on one body that could be measured? We even had photos taken in front of graph measurement boards so the tailor could have a look at our shape. There's a frightening thought.
The problem in ordering clothes for other people like my daughters is getting the measurements exact. I'd brought items they wanted copied, but I found myself squeezing into my youngest daughters dress so that they could decide on the best length. This process wasn't helped by the heat and Kerryn, who commented that I looked like George Jetson's wife whose name we couldn't remember! In other words I think we were losing the plot a bit! (her name was Jane by the way!)
Off to Brothers Cafe for an iced coffee which turned out to be an iced Moccha with both chocolate and coffee. Absolutely delicious and managed to revive us for the second onslaught, this time at Ah Dong, another fabulous tailor.
The score was about 42 items at one point although that doesn't seem much for 8 women!
We staggered back to the Hotel, getting distracted by DVDs, jewellery, and T-shirts on the way.
I managed to get the ATM to spit out 7,000,000 Dong which sounds and looks horrendous but is about $300. It's very tricky working in so many thousands, and we keep getting the 5000, 50,000 and 500,000 notes mixed up.
More pool time,quiet book reading, poolside snacks - superb Vietnamese prawn and banana flower salads, rice paper rolls and of course hot chips - followed by massages for all.
We clustered on Anna and Jan's front porch for G&Ts, and too many of them, before staggering off to the Mango Room for cocktails and dinner.
At one point following passionfruit mojitos (which we ordered by the jug!) and chocolate duck, Jenny sat back in her chair and said " Life is good!" with a big smile on her face.
That summed up the day for all of us!
Your somewhat poorer correspondent
Dianne
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