Shopping and beauty treatments

[John]

We had heard that it was worse than Hanoi but I preferred it as there were loads of cool places to go and it was much easier to venture out of the hotel and a lot less scary. It was my birthday so I decided to treat myself and go shopping; there were so many cool clothes shops. I wanted some jeans so I took a few of the largest size into the changing room, most of which I couldn’t even get passed my ankles as they were so small. The shop assistant was laughing at me and went to get loads of her friends; they kept opening the curtain of the dressing room while I was getting changed and laughing hysterically at me! The tops didn’t fit either, I kept getting them stuck when they were half way on and had to get my sister to help get them off again. Vietnamese people are much smaller than they look; some of the jeans had knees that were two inches wide – who has legs that small? Even babies legs are bigger than that. Shopping was pointless and embarrassing so I went to get a haircut and a facial (I’d never had a facial before). The facial was first and started off well, until they stuck a hot steamer in my face, which burnt and didn’t allow me to breathe. I think my discomfort was apparent as they quickly took it away. The facial also included a head, neck and should massage. The facial massage was funny as she pushed my face in different directions so I made funny faces (like you do with adults when you’re a kid), then she moved onto my head. I had no idea what she was doing but it felt like she was hitting me on the head with a big stick and it hurt. The strange and painful experience came to and end and I was moved into a chair to have my haircut. In the mirror I could see the woman behind me, I don’t know what she was having done but it looked more painful than what I had. The hairdresser grabbed her chin in one hand and her forehead in the other and twisted forcefully enough for me to hear the ‘click’ from across the salon. Then she started poking the woman’s forehead (what that is supposed to do is beyond me) and then slapped her around the face! Glad I didn’t have that done.