Hoi An, Vietnam: Made to measure.

Another overnight journey saw us head from Nha Trang to picturesque Hoi An, an ancient UNESCO World Heritage town that has nowadays become the place to get tailored clothing made in South East Asia - even more so than Bangkok. There are hundreds of 'cloth shops' here. And so we both got properly stuck in with getting a batch of stuff made, which we've already shipped home to UK.

I got a really excellent tailored suit made at a shop called Yaly Couture for $60, and they were really thorough. I got to choose from hundreds of different materials, as well as the colour and style of the lining. They had me in for five fittings in total, over the course of three days. Each time I had some alterations needed - or some that the tailor felt were necessary - the suit would go back to the stitching room for changes. Each time I told them something I wasn't happy with I felt more and more like the character of Danny in the mod film Quadrophenia (played with excellent gruff stroppiness by Daniel Peacock, who was also in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and played the dad in Teenage Health Freak, fact fans!) where he's basically just abusing the fusty old London tailor and wanting the suit a tighter fit than the tailor deems appropriate.

Tailor: How does that feel?
Danny: Awkward.
Tailor: What?
Danny: Bring it in 'ere [gestures towards hips]. Stop ****in' about!
Tailor: Don't use that language here, sonny. Talk like that and you can make your own suit.

That sort of thing, except I was more civil and so were they.

As well as the suit, I had a copy made of a pair of grey linen trousers of mine that were falling to bits. Other than not having quite the same shade of grey, they're an exact copy. I also got a black jacket and three fitted shirts to go with the suit, while Jacqui had three dresses made, plus a skirt and two really nice pairs of jeans.

Aside from tailoring, we enjoyed Hoi An's knackered charms. On our first night, we'd been invited to dinner by a Californian couple (we think they were a couple), who had suggested a restaurant called Mango Rooms by the river. It was an amazing meal - I had beef cooked in rum, huge great juicy chunks of it - but we'd slightly misjudged what sort of budget the Americans were travelling on and the bill was somewhat hair-raising compared to what we've been used to. The good company made up for it, but as Jacqui joked after we left the restaurant: "We'll have to go home one day earlier now..." Lovely people though, and one of the best meals of the trip.

Once all our tailoring was done, we took a day going round all the sights of the old town, including an old teak Chinese house that had been left untouched by the passage of time over six generations, and the Museum of History and Culture. Smashing little town, but really shopping is the big draw here these days. You couldn't ask for a nicer backdrop though.