2nd September

With no impending destination hundreds of kilometers away to try and reach, it was lovely to be able to create a base of sorts in the hotel and take life more slowly. Unfortunately the weather also had the same idea, and the oppressive heat of the last few days slowly lessened, then exploded into a tumultuous rainstorm that would last 5 days.

The suit fitting was scheduled for 10am, so at half past nine we meandered through the market, through the rain to search for Alice and Nancy and to try on our new suits. It wasn't English rain. It was wetter and hotter, and trekking through the drenched market place covered my flip flops in something approaching the smell, consistency and texture of fish entrails. On closer inspection it turned out to be fish entrails. Marvellous. The smell has permeated everything in my luggage and I can still smell it now. The market place smelt rotten and felt rotten, and the constant whingings of "buy me", "buy now" emanating from the various vendors seemed to hang in the already stale air. The tactic must have worked though, as the sellers seemed to have enjoyed rather better, or at least fuller, nutritional conditions than most other Vietnamese I'd seen and could obviously afford to have fed themselves into a more western build - the odd bulges around the mid-region being proudly displayed. The smell in the market was like off, rotting, festering cabbage with food offcuts unfit for consumption (literally) thrown in, all encased in a hot, humid air of contamination that gets in your nostrils, your hair and your clothes. And your feet, somehow. Despite the rain there was no roof structure as such in the market, merely tarpaulins draped at strategic angles from pole to pole, leaving odd spots of water pooling and bulging from interesting areas of the tarpaulin. If you were foolish enough to walk under one without ducking you could be guaranteed a bucket load of water over your head. It didn't cool you down.

I hoped our walk through the market was going to be the last time we had to endure it, but Yaly's 10am estimation was optimistic at best. The fitting must have been, it turned out, to assess how accurate the tape measure was. Which was not very. Putting on my emaciated trousers only served to remind me that my waist was extremely westernised, but the shirts fit well! I was asked to come back at 3pm for another fitting, once the trousers had been altered to better accommodate my figure, and got the first incling that I might be making a few trips back and forth through the market. Not an appealing thought.

On the way back to the hotel I happened upon one of the many other tailoring shops and took heed of the words the receptionist had said - Yaly is the best quality, but the other shops are much cheaper. With this in mind, I ventured in and ordered the most flamboyant jacket I could piece together. Bright yellow silk lining, a blue and yellow silk pattered fabric, and some hefty padding. It looked hideously brilliant and would apparently be available by the afternoon. Skeptical, I paid up front.

Despite the rain and the smell, the local life in and out of the market was wonderful to watch. I took some photos of the marketplace, though it's occupants weren't too happy about it. We decided to go back to the same bridge we drove over to get some good photos, but because of the rain, and an odd way of remembering distances, the bridge turned out to be about half an hour away. On a bike. So much for not riding... The rain also spoiled most of the view, which was rather predictable. At 3pm we went back to Yaly for what I hoped would be the final fitting, but they seemed to have other plans. The trousers fit slightly better this time, but the suit jacket was (would you believe it) too wide. Another appointment for 6pm and a distinct sinking feeling in my stomach, and we had a discussion. If this continued, we wouldn't be able to have a big driving day north tomorrow, and our itinerary for reaching Hanoi (via Halong bay in all it's natural beauty) seemed like it was getting further and further out of reach. We might, gulp, even have to get a train.

At 6pm we trailed back through the market, through the fish, in the rain, this time wielding umbrellas (courtesy of Ha An and the wonderful smiling receptionist), and ventured in to Yaly for the third time that day. It was busy. Alice had acquired another customer, from Australia, and I waited dutifully in the magazine section while the general hubbub and sound of tailoring went on all around me. There were some other Australians who seemed to be in the same predicament, and we had a good chat about Top Gear, the questionable nature of some of the things the program skipped over, my wonderfully oozing arm and the magnificent story that accompanied it.

Needless to say, once Alice was freed from her Australian labours, I was fully expecting not to have a completed set of clothes. I wasn't disappointed. "You come back at 10am" was my smiling response after fitting number three, and there was nothing for it but to accept... I wandered back to the other shop, expecting to be told the same story, but was pleasantly surprised when they presented me with a finished jacket! I tried it on, and although it didn't fit perfectly it was pretty close, and I smiled at myself and it's loud hideousness in the mirror.

As it happened, 2nd September is National Vietnam Day, which went a long way to explaining why most of the towns and villages we had driven through up to this point were liberally decorated with red and yellow flags - half with stars and the rest with the ubiquitous hammer and sickle. I wore my brilliant new jacket, we took umbrellas and headed out to a local restaurant, where I ordered a little bit of everything. Literally. It was written in English on the menu "A little bit of everything", I couldn't resist. It was delicious, but eaten delicately as I didn't want to spill any and overstimulate the patterns on my new jacket, which was going down well until the electricity ran out. We were seated near the entrance, luckily, as the residual light from the street offered a fading glow to see the food by. I watched as a continual stream of festival goers meandered through the streets on the way to the river in the fading sunlight, and felt full.

We joined the throng, following the hideous tinny noises coming from cheap Chinese toys and balloons down the streets towards the river. By now the sun had set and we were greeted by a multitude of sellers, most likely having already packed up their goods and wares from the market stall earlier, moved slightly nearer the river, and now peddling floating candles on stapled cardboard. We got one each and Tris eagerly dropped his into the river, where it promptly extinguished. I got mine delivered much more safely to the water via an ingenious inverse-umbrella drop manoeuvre, and mine stayed lit! Feeling a little paranoid and god weary, Tris ventured back to the stalls to buy two more, just in case, and managed to get both onto the river still alive. Complete guarantee to make it to Hanoi in one piece!

The rain did have another unintended consequence. My blistered hands turned from being raw to being a bit mushy, and slowly but surely bits of skin started bunching up on the back of my hands and along my arms in a vague attempt at peeling. While wet. Not lovely.

The festival was concluded in the rain, the thin flickering lights up and down the river giving a lighter, endearing feel to the hardship that seems to be endured by the Vietnamese. The laughter, the smiling young couples with all their teeth, the splashing children and the wisened older women taciturnly rowing out into the middle of the river to gently steer some stray candles back on course spanned the generations, and made the dimly lit but uniquely foreign event come alive.

With a small amount of frustration at not yet having any proper completed garments, the last night in the hotel was spent looking out at the rain, putting my now rotting footwear outside on the balcony, and hoping that we would be able to leave fairly early the next morning to put some serious kilometers behind us.