Sand in all the Wrong Places

---

We are slowly winding down our time in Vietnam. We decided to skip Nha Trang in favour of more time in Mui ne. Mui ne is a nice, if somewhat resorty, 13km stretch of beach in Southern Vietnam. We had a nice little piece of beach about 20 steps from our hotel door. The major sights in the area are the Fairy stream, White sand dunes, Red sand dunes, Red Canyon and fishing village.

The Fairy stream was great. It's a small stream about two meters wide and about 2 to 3 inches deep. We took a leisurely walk along the water, dodging cows, manure, and plants. One of the plants was carnivorus. The leaves closed together as if they were trapping our fingers when we touched it. Apparently, it eats small flies. We also got to see a lot of other different vegitation. Sonja's favorite was the lotus leaf, which can neither get wet nor dirty.

Our next stop was the fishing village. We didn't venture down to the village because it was literally made up of hundreds of boats sitting in the harbour getting ready to head out for an evening of fishing. We got some nice photos of it from the road and met some really energetic children.

Next was the White sand dunes. We were attacked by kids renting sleds to take down the dunes. After some pretty serious bardering, with a nine year old, we succumbed to his charms only to discover, once on the dunes, that the sand was too soft to slide on. The plastic "sleds" were rough and a little sticky. We both ended up with a mouthful of sand. We didn't fall for the same trick at the Red dunes. There, we had a lot of fun making shadow pictures in the afternoon sun. There was a nice German couple with us who probably thought we were a little crazy. The sand at the Red dunes was unbelievably fine and red. A handfull of the sand could easily be blown away by the wind. We got some really nice photos of the diverse terrain. Sand dunes, thick green vegetation and then the beautiful blue sea.

Finally, we went to the "canyon". There was nothing grand about it aside from the colour -- red. The rich red was so beautiful, but a talented long jumper could probably make it across the narrow canyon. The German couple, like us, had sand in all the wrong places by the end of the day.

Today we take the bus to Saigon. We are not too sure if we are ready for the chaos of the big city again, but we need to pass through on or way to Cambodia. It looks like we will spend two days in Saigon before heading to the Southern coast of Cambodia. There, we have heard, the incessant honking that we hear in Vietnam is accompanied by even worse roads. We probably won't complain so much about the potholes in Saskatchewan after this trip.

Hope all is well wherever you all are.

---

Comments

[Pat]

Kimchee
Every time you add to the blog it seems to get more exotic and exciting. Its so nice to be able to travel along with you. Last night in the wee small hours I was listening to a 1/2 hour broadcast from KBCWorld from Seoul. They were talking about how proud Korea was to have its first astronaut on the space station. In a day or two they will celebrate Yuri Gagarin's first trip to space and the Korean has taken kimchee with her to share with the rest of the crew. It reminded me that Sonja expected to miss kimchee when she left Korea. This too is exotic travel. Hope Cambodia will be full of suprises, the good ones.. When will we see pictures?

[Mari]

Chris B. spent a lot of time in Cambodia. If you would like advice on what to do or where to go, I am sure he would be happy to let you know.