Welcome back
After our relaxing week on Phu Quoc island. It was time to do some real traveling. but where to go? Vietnam is a country where its natural wonders are only topped by the friendliness of its people. The issue with this is that we only have 4week visas. we had spent one of those precious week on Phu Quoc which meant the the rest of our trip would be spent going place to place with out many night in one spot. It may also mean that we may have to skip a couple of 'hot spots' but which ones?
A local taking his bike on the beach to get to the best fishing spots
We settled on Mui Ne as our first destination. This is on the promise of beautiful beaches, the fairy spring and sand dunes. whats not to loves about that combo? Mui Ne is a town that has sprung up around a beautiful stretch of beach. It’s about 6km Long but only 2 streets deep! The main attraction is the fairly constant wind that allows for world class kitesurfing. This, however is not something I am into. I love sport and will try my hand at most of them but after a disastrous time trying to learn to surf in El Salvador which ended abruptly with broken ribs, I have decided that I don’t have the time here and now to start trying kitesurfing. The reason that we’re going to Mui Ne is for the sand dunes. They have two types of sand dunes here. One are perfect white sand and the other are a terracotta red sand. We were warned by some other travellers that we would arrive at hideous-o-clock and that pre booking a room for the night you arrive is worthwhile. We arrived at around 2:30am and were the only ones getting off the bus! Lucky for us the driver asked where we were staying and he stopped as close as he could. This still meant a 250 meter walk up a very steep side path to the Mui Ne hills Budget Hotel. Thank god it was 2:30am and a cool 19 degrees Celsius, as this made it a bearable walk. With our bags we headed to the place. When we arrived there was no one about, at all, plus the Mui Ne hills group have 4 hotels and a bar spread out at the top of this hill and we had no idea where we had to go. After walking onto a building site (again) and then walking around an area with a pool, finally a night porter appeared from behind a curtain. bleary eyed and doing his best to pretend he hadn't been asleep. Wordlessly he showed as a price of paper with names on. Ours was the only name left that hadn’t been scribbled all over. I pointed at them, smiled and nodded. “Passport” was the only word he said! We handed them over and they were quickly hidden away in a locked draw. This is a thing in Vietnam. The hotels are meant to take your passport and keep them locked away during your time with them. It’s very unnerving the first time and still doesn’t feel particularly nice now. We were shown our room which was positively palacios. The room was across two floors! Down stairs being a lounge area with a built in sofa, tv and wardrobe cupboard combo. Then a door to the bathroom with twin sinks! Up stairs led to the bedroom that overlooks the lounge. All this for £9 a night! Granted the room was a little tired, but in the uk £9 won’t even get you a big takeaway pizza! The following morning we had breakfast with a loverly view. Our high vantage point afforded us by the horrendous up hill walk earlier that morning meant we could see a lot of the town and the beach!
A Local fishing village hardly any of the families live on dry land
That afternoon we went on the only tour you could really do. The ‘Sunset sand dune tour’ this started with a trek up fairy spring. I was sceptical about this. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised, it was awesome we got dropped off and told to head up stream. So the shoes came off and up we went. It was so refreshing in the crippling heat. Ankle deep in spring water. I certainly wouldn’t have drunk it but still it felt wonderful. Here we made the acquaintance of Wendy. She is a Chinese woman of 28 and totally mad. The most friendly and heart warming person but mad as a box of frogs. After asking me to take photos of her walking down an ally pulling ‘I am having the best time’ poses. She said “hi I am Wendy, what’s your name”? That set the theme for a major part of the day. We stopped at a fishing village and we all got out to take some photos. Where was Wendy? She was getting a confused looking local to snap shots of her draped over a bench. When we returned to the bus she was there offering us yogurts. We all took one gladly and tucked straight in. I noticed that Wendy wasn't eating one. When I asked why she wasn’t eating one she said “I am offering them to you as I have already eaten 3 and your helping me not to eat all 8!” They were delicious by the way. When we got to the white dunes it took us all by surprise. As we were driving down a major road surrounded with grass and trees then over the brown of a hill and wham there is a lot of white sand! Like a sandy oasis in the Middle of a lot of green. It was totally backward.
Upon arrival we were surrounded with people selling jeep or quad bike tours. The other tour you could take was the ostrich tour. I guessed that meant that you travelled around the dunes around and spotted the wild ostrich that lived in and around the dunes..... I showed interest in this then realised my mistake as a man promptly lead a saddled ostrich around the corner. I thanked him politely and left. As a group we all chipped in and took the jeep tour. As we all climbing into the ratty old jeep, our 'guide' and driver who didn't speak a word of English gestured for every one to hold on tight. how bad could is be? This old rust bucket was probably an abandoned American army jeep left here from the war in 1975. as I thought that we shot of in a cloud of smoke, to the the soundtrack of our teeth clattering together and the wine of an decades old gear box. As we hit the softest of sand there was no letting up just peddle to the floor and steering wheel flying left and right as he fought for purchase. I loved every minuet. He stopped at the top of the tallest dune and from this vantage point we could see the whole sandpit. For in truth that is all it was a Giant 25 square kilometre sand box. We all got back in the jeep and were driven across to the river at break neck speeds. I would have never believed that a jeep of that age would have been able to do that speed brand new let alone after 42 years of neglect. All too soon the jeep tour was over and we were escorted back onto the tourist bus and away to the terracotta sunset dunes.
The 'White' sand dunes of Mui Ne
I was very excited about this part of the trip as I had big plans for a long exposer photo of the sunset with the clouds blurring and the sky on fire in sunset orange and red. I had carried a tripod around all day for this moment. We spent a shot time walking about looking for THE best spot and then disaster stuck. I had lost one of the handles off the tripod. I couldn't lock it tight between landscape and portrait. Jen being a true hero walk back along the route we walked to get to our spot but she had no luck. So I managed to swap the handles on my tripod and lock it in landscape. but left to right it had no stability. I know that a lot of people won't be that interested in this very first world problem, but I had given up nearly two kilos of my very valuable twenty kilo baggage allowance for this tripod and now it didn't work properly. Undeterred I setup and balanced the camera and surprisingly it worked well, better than well it worked great. The only issue now was that the clouds had started to roll in and there really wasn't much of a shot left! I am not complaining but did Mother Nature not realise that I had travelled all this way and over come a few photographic issues just to be halted at the last minuet by a below par sunset! Guess you win some and lose some. All the time I was messing about with the tripod and Jen was handle hunting Wendy had gone very quiet. "All ok?" I enquired. "yeah fine but can you photograph me rolling down this dune when you get a moment?" and that was all it took for me to realise there would be other sunsets in different locations that would be much better than this.
The Terracotta dunes, Mui Ne at sunset.
After all the sunset 'drama' we were dropped off by a BOKE restaurant. You know the classic thing of picking a lobster and then twenty minuets later your eating said lobster? well.... BOKE is just like that accept you have a choice of just about any moving thing in ocean that has been dragged up that day. We had the option of snapper, lobster, grouper and many other types of fish. As to shellfish we could have had things I didn't even recognise. also terrapin, eel and shark were on offer! Normally I would not eat at a restaurant that had shark on the menu. This is partly because I am in love with Scuba diving and there is nothing better or more thrilling than seeing a shark while diving. They are a fish so perfect that they haven't really changed in millions of years. When I see reports and photos of the shark finning industry I can not even begin to explain the incandescent rage I feel bubbling up inside. Seeing that every single BOKE restaurant has some form of shark in a tank I decided not to make a fuss but do all in my power to make sure that as a group we didn't order any. As some small consolation they were offering the whole shark as edible and not just the fins. Wendy was the hardest to convince that we didn't need shark, we were Successful and ordered an array of shellfish. It pains me to admit that the food was excellent. We all paid about £9 a head for some of the freshest and tastiest sea food we have ever had.
The following day we took a Bus to Dalat but that journey will be covered in next weeks blog. I am sorry about the delay in publishing this blog post we were moving a lot around Vietnam after this and trying to pack in as much as possible, that is my excuse and I am sticking to it! I would definitely recommend Mui Ne as a stop on your trip around Vietnam even if your not into water sports. If your not a fan of sand then maybe bypass most of the south coast as its all sand, palm trees and beautiful water.