After we left An Bang Beach, we turned the motorbike back in to our hotel and went over to Yaly. Zach tried on his second pair of trousers and while he was paying for his clothes, I tried on the dress. I was a little disappointed at first, but Mary and I both agreed that it needed to be taken in a lot more and I was hopeful that the finished product would look better. She told me to come back in an hour to try it on again (fast!). So we left, Zach with clothes and me with one more fitting. We returned to the hotel to rest for a bit and I returned to Yaly by myself an hour later. The second fitting went much better; I was much happier with it and Mary told me the hem would be finished and they would deliver all of my clothes to the hotel. So I paid for my clothes and went back to the hotel.
We decided to eat at a street stall instead of a restaraunt so we walked along the riverfront until we made it to the end of the street and a really popular eatery. We had Cau Lau and the White Rose, both local specialties, with a couple Larue beers. Our total was $4. After dinner we walked across the bridge to An Hoi Peninsula where there were some more bars, restaraunts, and a little street bazaar. We picked up a few more tiny lanterns (50 cents ea.) and returned to the hotel.
Upon our return my clothes were in the lobby! My elation was soon dampened when we returned to our room. Although we didn't take notice initially, the door (which we had been locked with 2 turns for a double lock) was only locked once. I immediately took note that our armoir doors were flung open. I didn't think Zach had left them that way when we went to dinner (we had been closing them our entire stay). When we went to dinner I had decided to leave my purse in the room at the last minute. I didn't really need to carry it around with me (I've been keeping all my dong in my front pocket rather than my wallet.) So when I noticed the armoir doors I immediately opened my bag and checked my wallet. Of the $6 in my wallet previously, there was only $1. I looked up at Zach and told him someone had been in our room - an eerie and discomforting feeling - and we quickly searched the rest of our belongings to make sure nothing else was missing. Everything else was there. It was apparent that our thief had made a quick entry and exit, although not doing a very good job of covering his tracks. The 3 things we noticed were the singly locked door, the open armoir doors, and the zipped up back pocket on my purse (which I'd be leaving open for easy camera access). We were lucky that it was only $5, but it really ruined our stay at the An Huy Hotel. When we left for dinner there was only 1 staff member there and he obviously noticed that I wasn't carrying my purse (shame on me!), so I accept responsibility for the stolen $5. However, it's unfortunate that something like that happened. We definitely won't be staying there again and Zach has decided to write up an unfavorable review on TripAdvisor.
Since my driver's license and debit card were also in my wallet I was worried that maybe he wrote the number and my address down and would attempt to use it to make online purchases. Zach and I decided it was best for me to call my bank and freeze my account until we return home. Thankfully, I had just pulled out some more money from the ATM that morning, but now I am cut off from my own funds for the remainder of our trip.
Zach was pretty upset about the whole incident so he decided to go downstairs to possibly confront our thief. When he went downstairs the guy was still there. Zach walked up to him after awkwardly standing around for a few mintues and asked him if anyone had come in to the hotel while we were at dinner. His response? "No English." And he pointed in the direction of the other staff member who had arrived later. Bullshit. He definitely speaks enough English to have understood and answered. Guilty.
After the incident neither one of us trusted our hotel. They had made flight reservations for us on our first day, but hadn't given us any sort of confirmation that we were actually booked. So Zach went downstairs to get a confirmation and we got online to make sure it wasn't fake. Since our flight today wasn't until 2:15pm we packed our bags in the morning, but took anything of any value with us when we went out in the town one last time. We also calculated all of our charges prior to checking out so that we would be prepared for any inflated prices. Our hotel also booked transportation for us to the airport. We assumed it would be a cab, but the car that pulled up wasn't. I wasn't convinced it was legitimate until we made it to the airport. (We did!)
But enough of that. On our last morning in Hoi An we played it pretty relaxed. We left the hotel pretty early (a rooster and pig usually woke us up fairly early each morning) and headed through the busy market to the docking area. We bargained with a lady for a boat ride on the river and enjoyed an early morning cruise on the Thu Bon. Now the Vietnamese are not ecological conscious in any way so don't imagine a beautiful blue river, but rather a nice muddy brown one where people dump any manner of things into it. Muddy waters aside, the breeze was nice and the cruise enjoyable. Afterwards we returned to Tam Tam Cafe for Vietnamese iced coffees and breakfast. Then we returned one last time to our hotel and decided to check out early (after making sure we weren't missing anything else).
Our bill was fine, our ride to the airport was fine, and our tickets were legitimate. Everything turned out fine. Unfortunately for some of the staff, one person ruined it for them all.
