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Published: April 28th 2008
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Mui Ne and HCM City - feb 08
We got off the train in the nearest station to Mui Ne, it was still about a half an hour journey to get there. Taxi was our only option and as usual the drivers were very keen to fleece tourists of money to take us, to be honest there was no other option other than to walk it in 35 degree heat with massive backpacks ! So we paid the going rate, which for the 30 minute journey they charged as much as the 20 hour train journey had just been. The driver didn't speak much English so swearing at him for most of the journey made me feel a little better !
We were loving the heat, seeing as we hadn't seen the sun since India apart from a few hot days in Laos. We stayed first of all in a nice place right on the beach with a swimming pool, but could only stay 2 nights as everywhere was busy with it being Vietnamese new year. It was a pain to leave for a night and then return to the same place, we hadn't been booking places in advance
anywhere so had fallen out of the habit of doing so.
The beach was great but quite windy making it ideal for the kite surfers. We both fancied giving it a go , as usual when you watch anything ( golf being a good example ) anyone doing it well makes it look so easy that you think it will be a doddle. We enquired about lessons and were told that the 'beginners course' took 3 days in all with 8 hours of tuition just to be able to stand up ! So most of this time you would be flying a big kite on the beach to get used to its power ! ( Seeing how high these fellas were jumping, i have respect for the big kite ! ) We had left it late and didn't have 3 days left, so Mui Ne has been added to a long list of places that we need to 'go back to'.
The beach had some really nice bars and restaurants and a really nice laidback feel to it, having not expected much or heard anything about Mui Ne we loved it. We lazed about for many days either
by the pool or on the beach , either having a dip in the pool or going in the quite rough sea for the washing machine effect ! One night we went over to some sand dunes which are good for sunsets and sand sledging ! We arrived and saw kids flying down the dunes , unfortunately being a bit heavier i went a couple of yards before getting stuck, not what i had in mind ! With the help of 3 kids pushing i eventually made it to the bottom. We made our way over to the dunes on a moped we had hired, earlier in the day i had used it to go to a local golf course and have a hack round. I was rubbish, but my vietnamese caddie, who was comedy, made up for it !
Mui Ne had been superb for our first beach resort and is still my favourite now even after being to Thailand/Malaysia ....etc We then caught a 4 hour bus to Ho Chi Minh City.
With our visa running out we only had 2 days in HCM City and one of these we had already put aside to visit the
Cu Chi Tunnels. If you haven't heard of these tunnels they were used in the Vietnam War by the Vietnamese, there are hundreds of kilometres of tunnels, some now have been widened for tourists to have a look in. Seeing the actual size of the tunnels that haven't been widened brought it home just how effective they were and how horrible it must have been for the Americans who had to go in there and firght. Before seeing the tunnels we were given a talk by a very biased/patriotic Viatnamese guy who informed us how they "exterminated the Americans". We were shown various "booby traps" with the guy explaining enthusiasticly again how they caused pain and again "exterminated Americans" , that was his favourite phrase ! All the traps were quite brutal. We got to 'have a go' in the tunnels, a 20 second trip underground being more than enough to show us what it must have been like.
Then the best bit, halfway round you can stop off and buy bullets to fire a variety of weapons, absolutely superb ! We chose the ak47 and a machine gun, they are fastened down so it takes a bit of
the fun away, but the noise and power they produce is unbelieveable. The bullets didn't last to long in the machine gun ! We enjoyed the guns a bit too much and we had then lost our tour guide and the group[. You would think if you let members of your group go off to fire guns you would then give them a shout to say " we're going now" , well our guide forgot this bit. This is the only downside of the place is that you feel a bit rushed and the guides are on a tight schedule. Cut a long story short we were late back for the bus, which had already left only for an Aussie guy to help us out and tell the guide that we were missing. He and the guide had come to look for us, we eventually got back to the bus to a load of sarcastic applause from some french people at the rear of the coach. It really had been the guides fault and to be honest we were quite pleased to be irritating the French ! Smell my fromage.
For the rest of our time in HCM City
nice sunset
you can never have too many sunset pictures we had a good wander round and went to some nice bars including one in a hotel giving great views of the city. To be honest, as with Kuala Lumpar and Singapore, we wished we had longer in Ho Chi Minh City.
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