Lanterns and dresses

Saturday the 1st til Thursday the 6th of February: Woopwoop! I am happy again 😁 Hoi An was just what I hoped it would be. A beautiful town with nice weather, great food and lovely people. I stayed at Cococha Hostel and treated myself to a private room. The 6 hour train ride to Hoi An was a bit uncomfortable, as the lady next to me took up part of my space (although she was tiny) and didn't have the best personal hygiene. Also, when the train was going through beautiful landscapes along the coast, she would keep the curtains shut and peek out of a little gap herself, but only opened them for me for about 2 minutes, after I asked 😒 The first night at my hostel, I did not sleep much, because there was a neon party, that made my room on the first floor shake. But so I knew socializing would not be a problem here 😋 The next day I explored Hoi An, it's cute little alleys, cafés (good cappuccino, yeayyyy), shops and of course the tailors. When I arrived I thought, that I might have a suit made, maybe a dress. But not too much, I have enough clothes at home. Of course absolutely no one ended up with 4 dresses and a suit. Who would be so decadent 🙈 Oh dear, so my travel purse is a lot lighter now, but it was worth it. Such lovely designs with a perfect fit, I just couldn't resist. I can highly recommend 'Beri, the tailor', great service and quality, good price and so friendly! Oh and if you need a ego-boast, just stroll through the shops and the ladies there will constantly tell you, how beautiful you are. I do have the slight feeling, that it is a selling technique though 😋 Still, very flattering. And of course, once you have a nice dress, they will assure you, that now you won't have any problems securing a boyfriend 😂 It is really peculiar, before someone would even ask for my name, they often asked how old I was and if I had a boyfriend. When I told them, they were shocked and very worried and kept asking why. I found it quite funny but of course it shows the level of emancipation and equality in Vietnam. In the evening I got to know some people at the hostel's music quiz. Daniel, who is like me in his 30s, and I where a good team, as the questions where mostly about 'older' songs 😋. We spent the next days together, strolling through town, partying and going to the beach, having such a lovely time. At one party, I was wondering why everybody was getting balloons. I thought, they where inhaling helium to make their voices sound funny and could not quite understand why everyone was so hyped about it. Haha, naive Christina, of course there was something else in the balloons: Nitrous Oxide, laughing gas. I tried one. It was a nice short high of about 30 seconds with a bit of a tingling feeling in my body. After the long party night, a chill day on the beach was in order. You can get a sunlounger and parasol for free, if you order drinks or food. The food was amazing and the beach was not very busy, so we had a perfect day. In the evening, the hostel had another neon party, but we were too tired. The tactics were putting on Jamie Cullum to drown out the uzuzuz until the party moved on to another place at 2am. So the next day, I woke up quite rested, having more then 4 hours of sleep for the first time in 3 nights 😋 Daniel left for Seoul, South Korea, where it's around 0C 😱🥶 I got comfortable at the pool and booked my next hostels and flights. Later I joined a street food tour and enjoyed Banh Can (little rice and egg pancakes with herbs and sweet chilli-fish-sauce), Banh Mi and a coconut-avocado-banana smoothie 😊 In the evening I picked up my dresses and had them send to Germany. On Thursday, after a great breakfast (Cococha offers it for free and unlike most of the free breakfasts at hostels, it's really good), I got a shuttle bus to Da Nang to catch my flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Hoi An was so far my favorite place in Vietnam. It was very charming and had a good vibe. Also my hostel was great. I feel ready to throw myself into the chaos of another big city. Ho Chi Minh, here I come.