Getting shoes in big sizes in Vietnam is not easy

This isn't a flex or anything arrogant or negative about South East Asians (or mostly all Asians for the matter) but the fact is that Asians, generally speaking, tend to be quite a bit smaller than westerners. The good news for the Asians though is that except for Malaysia (sorry @davidke20 ) most of these countries are far less fat than westerners also. Good job on that front and maybe stop putting sugar in everything and insisting on everything being deep fried? I dunno, seems like a good place to start.

Stay on topic stay on topic stay on topic.

So yeah, I have started to have a more active lifestyle and the old probably that has plagued me for now, more than 20 years emerged again. I was out jogging - and don't get excited, it wasn't very much - when I started to feel like the soles in my shoes just weren't cutting it because they were worn out because I am the kind of person that buys shoes only once the other ones are falling apart.

Anyway, the trip to the mall was fruitless as I was restricted to whatever they have in a size 46 and trust me, there were not many options.

So I was recommended a company called Decathlon, which I had used in the past and well, they arrived the other day!

I had heard about a sport company in USA called Zappos I think it was where they have a no nonsense shoe delivery program where the shipping is always free as are the return shipping if need be. Well Decathlon doesn't do free returns but within a certain time frame they will accept them, but well, I wasn't planning on returning these.

I opted for some trail running shoes because I like to get off road for a bit of hiking if I can but mostly I ordered these because they have monster heels on them and good arch support.

I find the color scheme on them to be absurd but I'm not a fashion guy so I guess I don't really care. Nadi wasn't afraid of them so this is a plus. The company name on these shoes is Evadict and it would not surprise me at all if you have never heard of this because I never have. However, what was important to me wasn't the brand name but what the shoe itself is made of and it turns out that it is basically exactly the same shoe as the Nike Wildhorse trail running shoe.

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I was very thorough with my investigation into materials, stitching, where and how they are made and it turns out that all of these things are suspiciously very similar to the point that it honestly wouldn't surprise me if they both came out of the same factory doors with different logos on them. I mean think about what you know about industry... that does seem like something they would do right?

The big difference here is that the Nike Wildhorse shoes are around $150 and my Evadict MT was about $70.

I broke them in on a 2k walk with Nadi last night and I have to say, these are without question the lightest weight shoes I have ever worn in my life. Does that make a difference in performance? Well we will probably never know because I no longer move very fast. But they were comfortable and they have a huge sole on them and the arch support is good. They do NOT have an easy on off as far as the heel is concerned but I will never buy that sort of shoe again after my last pair that had that feature wore out after a year. I should have seen that coming actually.

I can't say for sure that people should order the "knock off" quality products from Decathlon just yet, but I have to say so far it seems pretty legit. I've never really been a labels guy so if these shoes hold up, I might be a convert to no more Nike/Adidas/Reebok stuff because come one now...we all know that the increased price of those things are at least in part because of marketing, right?