"The Lying Planet," Claire said, nearly spitting out the words. "That’s what my mates and I call it." I clutched the bible closer to my chest. I’d had my own problems with the world’s most famous travel guide; my hotels always cost more and they rarely had a talking elevator as advertised. But still, I believed. After all, wasn’t this the guide that was born on a kitchen table in the 1970’s? It had pedigree. It must be believed.
But most travel guides – or travel articles, for that matter – don’t even come close to giving you the information you need to navigate the situations they get you into. I discovered this in Hoi An, a picturesque village in central Vietnam famous for ancient buildings, its appearance in The Quiet American and the hundreds of tailor shops that line the streets.
I had read about magical tailors that manufacture entire wardrobes overnight. The guide book claimed "the master tailors" were "even able to copy designs straight out of fashion magazines… in just a couple of hours." Master tailors my fat ass.
Like Claire, I arrived in Hoi An with grand plans of remaking my entire wardrobe. I saw the pants I wanted on a mannequin, my wife selected fabric and the saleslady pinned them up. But when I returned the next day they were not what I had ordered. In fact, they were an exact copy of the model we had taken off the mannequin! Back they went. The next day brought more of the same: the right fit, but the wrong pockets. In the end it took three visits to get them right.
Even my wife, who by her own admission is a bit of a clothes horse, was foiled; the night before we departed found her holed up in the hotel room ripping out the plastic lining from her perfect-for-the-beach skirt. Nor was it a fresh copy of the skirt either, but the very one that had hung on the half-mannequin earlier. Oddly, it turned out to be the best buy of the bunch.
"I’ve had to change my flight!" Claire’s Irish temper flared. "I’ve been five days, in and out of the same three shops. I’ve hardly seen the city. I eat across the road so I can be ready to try on my leather jacket at a moment’s notice. I even went down to the cloth market and picked out my own buttons! Honestly, I have a life."
Never go to the cloth market. At least, not according to the four Australians I spent my last night commiserating with. According to our western sensibility, a market is supposed to be cheaper and provide authentic hand-made quality. Not in Hoi An, apparently, where there is no price difference between the market stalls and the storefronts.
You might think there’d be a difference in quality or service, but, like Jason and his fiancé Jane, you’d be horribly, horribly wrong. Jane wanted a pair of wool pants with pinstripes, Jason wanted cargo shorts. They discovered that all tailor shops in Hoi An – be they in the market or off the street – send their orders to the same pool of seamstresses. Imagine a large warehouse filled to bursting with women hunched over antique pedal-powered sewing machines (the kind my Grandmother bequeathed to me because she stopped using it in 1958). Now imagine a motorbike courier entering and handing his order over to the first available seamstress. Clearly, the quality of the workmanship is not dependent on the store, the salesperson, or anything Jason and Jane can control. It is simple luck of the draw; Jason’s shorts might end up in the hands of someone who can interpret the instructions or, more likely, they might not.
Jason ended up with a pair of baby-blue, pinstriped, wool cargo shorts, which were more suitable to a man of a very different sexual persuasion. Jason and Jane claimed that between them they threw out over $150 U.S. of made-to-measure clothing.
I never did part with my copy of the world’s most popular travel book. Neither did Claire and the mates. "Let’s see what The Lying Planet has to say on the subject," I overheard her saying two days later as she compared a brace of guides. "Maybe it’s not a bible, after all," I thought as I boarded the bus south. "Maybe it’s just, well, a guide."
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