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When planning this Vietnam trip, a beach break was a ‘must do’ for us both. After a bit of research, Mui Ne came up as a good combination of quaint old fishing village, fantastic beach and water (for Andrew) and resort r&r (for me). So off we headed to the Blue Ocean Resort in Mui Ne.

I knew this was a resort town, but I really wasn’t prepared for the massive number of hotels and restaurants packed into a narrow beach strip. However the beach does meander for 10km so you could get out of the packed sections if you so wished. The Blue Ocean Resort is centrally located on the strip which made looking for a lunch and dinner spot quite easy. As it turned out our favourite choice was just across from our resort anyway...handy! The main attraction at Golden Sands Restaurant was the freshly barbequed fish, tiger prawns and lobster (priced according to weight). The other good thing about this place was that they didn’t have touts standing outside hassling you to go in. We like to reward good behaviour.

Our beachside bungalow was just gorgeous! We didn’t have to fight for the beach huts or deck chairs on the resort’s private beach - Andrew could walk the few metres to the water straight from our bungalow. I was equally impressed that the massage hut was only 10 metres to the right of our bungalow and I faithfully trotted over daily to get my 1pm massage.

Although most of the guide books tout Nha Trang as the place to go for sun and surf, I would pick Mui Ne over Nha Trang any day for a relaxing break! Not surprisingly Andrew really loved the warm sea, but sadly most tourists seemed to favour the hotel pools over the beach! Why come away to a beach resort to use a pool? I don’t get it...! The area is famous for its wind sports and we spent many hours lying on our porch lounges watching the kite surfers.

Admittedly there was a hell of a lot of pure laziness and excessive eating and drinking; but we also did some walking around the town. We attempted to walk the entire length of the beach to the busy fishing village at the end, but the hot afternoon sun, eroded beaches and hungry tummies conspired against us and we had to catch a taxi back to our resort where cold drinks, food and our porch lounges awaited us.

I do wish we had managed to make it to the fishing village though, as we had wanted to see the processes involved in making fish sauce - especially as Vietnam's finest fish sauce apparently comes from this area. Fish sauce is a very important ingredient in Vietnamese cooking; in the way that olive oil would be to Italian cooking.

On our last evening we went back to ‘our’ restaurant, where we pointed to a lobster on display at the front of the restaurant and had the taste bud tingling sensation that was a garlic and butter bbq lobster for the last time. Mui Ne we love you and will miss you very much! But we are also looking forward to getting home to our own bed, to the doggies and kitty, and to clothes that have not lived in a pack for a month.

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