Heaven on Earth [Mui Ne, Vietnam]

I ended up staying in Mui Ne a lot longer than I probably should have. The reason; This place is heaven on earth. It has its own micro-climate, so while the weather in the rest of Vietnam has been very hit-and-miss, Mui Ne has constant sunny blue skies. The coastline is a huge expanse of beautiful white sand and (mostly) clear waters, and is a world-famous location for wind-surfing and kite-boarding. Paradise.

  
           

I feel this post is going to be quite short, mainly because everything I did in four days can be summed up in only a few words: Swimming, relaxing, drinking and eating way too much, shared with some super-cool people. Two in particular; Richard, an English guy now living in Thailand, on holiday in Vietnam for a month. And Julia, a Sweedish girl travelling the world with no plan or destination. Awesome!

So other than chilling the f out, I spent my time at this insanely good restaurant. I would go as far as to say it had the best food I have had in Vietnam, and it was CHEAP! That and drinking my new favourite rum. I have taken a photo for any fellow rum drinkers who are thinking about taking a trip to Vietnam in the near future...

Richard, Julia, an Aussi guy named Matthew and I all hired scooters one day and drove up to the sand dunes. There are two sets of dunes; first the red dunes which are about 15kms north of Mui Ne. They are very impressive, just as impressive as the dunes I saw in the Gobi Desert. There are plenty of kids running around trying to get you to hire plastic sheets to slide down the hills. At first demanding 200,000 VND (US$10) between the four of us, and later settling on 10,000 each. The sliding was a bit of an anti-climax to be honest, but the dunes were definitely worth a visit.

     

We passed by a cute little fishing village on the way out, the harbor absolutely packed with boats. In the evening you can see all the boats out on the water, and there are so many it seems as though you are looking across a lake to land on the other side.

The second set, the white dunes, lie a further 20kms down the road. These are even bigger and more impressive. We made it just before a beautiful sunset. The sun painting the clouds in all sorts of yellows, blues and oranges. Spectacular.

     

Oh, and I also watch the All Blacks destroy the Aussies. I cannot wait for next weekend; when I'll meet Simon (my French buddy) in Phenom Phen (Cambodia) to watch the final.

One thing I thought was a little sad in Vietnam is I have found people using CouchSurfing for more commercial purposes. In Dalat there was a guy on there who says he would like to show you around the area. But when I got there he wanted to charge me US$18! And in Mui Ne there is a guy into kite surfing - same deal. Not cool.

Anyway, next stop: Siagon!