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Published: April 11th 2007
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The Rainbow Stream - Mui Ne
One of the sights on our pinned together Mui Ne Tour We had decided to take a trip up the coast from Saigon, staying in Mui Ne and Nha Trang, then back in a circle via a town in the Central Highlands called Dalat. We were to find travel a slog as none of the individual journeys were long enough to take overnight buses. This meant all journeys were 5 to 6 hour bumpy rides. Still we now had music on our ipod and there were plenty of shops selling our favorite baguettes and Laughing Cow cheese along the way, so we made do.
Our first stop was Mui Ne, only about 5 hours from Saigon. It was just the peaceful haven that we craved. We hired a pretty little bungalow (well shack really!) on the beach and spent most of our time either there or hanging out in the surf bum bars along the beach. Mui Ne has a real surf type vibe as it is an absolute mecca for wind and kite surfing, great to watch while you laze away. We mistakenly took the Lonely Planet’s advice and did a jeep tour of the sand dunes and other points of interest. Whilst it was nice to get out
and see the countryside and the fishing village we visited was very picturesque, the stop offs were pretty useless time fillers designed to separate Mr Tourist from his cash. In hindsight, we wished we had done a cheap wind surf lesson instead.
We moved on further north to Nha Trang and were sad to find it much more like Saigon than a beach haven. However, it did have a gorgeous beach and was a great place to top up the tans. Thanks to some side effects from the anti-malarial we are taking, this is becoming surprisingly easy. One minute in the sun seems to affect us like one hour!
A huge plus in Nha Trang is the amazingly fresh and delicious seafood. On our last night we treated ourselves to huge prawns which you pick yourself and then they BBQ up. And when we say treat ourselves - the whole tasty meal was about 4 pounds! Another great thing about Nha Trang were the mud baths. Here you basically soak in a huge mud pool (luckily we had one to ourselves), then sit in the sun to dry off and absorb all the mud nutrients, you then have
all these crazy showers and sit in a super hot bath (again luckily we had our own). It was a great feeling and our skin did feel super smooth. Vicki polished the experience off with her, by now weekly, massage. This was the scariest yet with a pole on the ceiling so the masseuse could walk up her back but they are oh so good!
The only bummer with Nha Trang was that being the mugs we are we took more Lonely Planet advice and booked onto an island tour. Once again this seemed to be lots of random things pinned together to try and create a tour. We went snorkeling in the rubbish filled sea but had to retreat as there were so many jelly fish that we were getting stung like mad. We also had live music on the boat after lunch which was just plain scary. We floated in the sea in rubber rings drinking wine - apparently a floating bar. And we visited one of the most inhumane aquariums we have seen. We didn’t know what it was until we had already paid and then felt guilty for funding such cruelty. We did spend quite
a long time on a beautiful beach on one of the islands which made us think we would been far better just getting a charter boat here.
Next we headed inland on the loop back to Saigon. We stopped at a town called Dalat which people had said was really nice but we were totally baffled as to why they thought this. We stayed a grand total of 15 hours. Just long enough to sample the local delicacy of artichoke tea which was surprisingly tasty.
So back on the bus to Saigon. It hadn’t calmed down any since last time we were here. Although it was a bit like coming home, especially when the lady at the Yellow House Hotel recognised us straight away and welcomed us back. We had hoped to leave for Cambodia the next day but it was a bank holiday and all the buses were full so we spent an extra day enjoying Saigon’s mad vibe. Not much to tell apart from a visit to our favorite restaurant (Be Saigon) where we got a meal with raw chicken (its not some weird recipe - just not cooked well). Unfortunately we didn’t notice until we
had both eaten some. The most silly part was the owner trying to charge us for the dish saying he had offered to cook it some more and then trying to barter us down! Needless to say we didn’t pay and caused a good ole English scene. Anyway, no matter, as Paul’s suggested remedy of chilli vodkas in Le Pub after dinner seemed to work and neither of us got ill!
Finally the day came to leave Vietnam and we waited for our pick up at the hostel to take us all the way across the border with Cambodia and on to the capital Phnom Penn. We really enjoyed Vietnam, even if we did do some random tours that we shouldn’t have bothered with. It was very interesting and moving to learn more about the American War and its effect on Vietnam’s people. We also found the people great fun. They are pretty persistent in their sales techniques and mad as hatters but always smiling. We found particularly all the women we met were probably the most sweet and smiley people ever! And of course we can’t forget the food which was so delicious, Paul will miss his PHO!
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