Advertisement
Published: February 1st 2010
Edit Blog Post
For the first time on our trip Ken and I had called a couple of guesthouses to try and pre book our accommodation. Usually we just rock up at a spot and take it from there but our bus was due to arrive in Mui Ne at 1:30am so be though we best not take our chance and rather book a spot.
Some five bumpy hours later we arrived in Mui Ne where we were hurriedly ushered off the bus before it made a speedy departure leaving us in its dust on the very dark, deserted street at the completely wrong end of Mui Ne. Not knowing where we were and not being able to decipher where we were in relation to where we had booked to stay we headed down a small dirt path heading in the direction of the only light visible and found, quite literally, the only place that was open in the vicinity. Naturally the spot cost somewhat more than we had wanted to spend for a room for the night and it wasn’t the spot we had booked to stay at in any case so we decided that we weren’t just going to settle but
Mui Ne
Blue sky and sea :-) that we would rather try and find the spot we had booked to stay at cause really how big could the one road town of Mui Ne possibly be....little did we know.
So Kenny and I, bearing our heavy back packs on our severally sunburnt shoulders accompanied by, lap tops and hang bags headed down the road in the direction of the decreasing property street numbers in pursuit of number 88. Some very very painful 2kms later we found an empty plot where number 88 should have been and we decided that perhaps walking alone, down the pitch dark, deserted main drag, in absolute agony as a result of our sun burn was probably not the most sensible idea and we promptly tuned around to sheepishly go and negotiate with the lady at the reception where we had enquired in the beginning. She was sweet enough to offer us a whopping $5 discount on account of our now 3am check in.
Up till now our weather had really been average and we were bummed that we had managed to get so sun burned in over cast conditions because when we finally poked our heads out of our room
Mui Ne
Ken and I we were welcomed by the most spectacular day and the place we had stumbled into some hours prior was just as stunning with its wonderfully inviting pool that sat alongside the beach, the most perfect spot to catch a tan if you aren’t already looking like a pomegranate. While the resort was stunning we ascertained that we were some kilometres away from the happening part of Mui Ne’s main drag, we also, incidentally, discovered that we were in fact walking in the completely wrong direction earlier that morning while trying to find our guest house. and that Mui Ne is spread out along a 19km stretch of single road.
Couple with the distance from the happening part of town we also decided that we didn’t want to pay double for our average fan room at the place we were at we rather opted to catch a taxi the 4km’s down the road to try our luck at Hai Yen guesthouse on recommendation from some Irish girls we’d met in NhaTrang and what a good decision. At a quarter of the price with an equally nice pool that overlooked the sea, Hai Yen turned out to be a winner of
a spot to settle for two nights. There was only one big problem with Hai Yen, Kenny and I had to sit alongside to stunning pool lathered in SPF30 sun cream wrapped in our Sarongs rather than being able to take advantage of the inviting loungers, mad disappointment!
Even though we were unable to bask under the bright blue Mui Ne sky we did commandeer the pool/sea side thatched gazebo for a couple of hours before renting a couple of bikes and heading down the drag to see what Mui Ne was all about.
Mui Ne is a wonderful rural beachside spot comprising one main road that is about 19km’s with biggish towns on either end of the 19km’s. It really is a very very picturesque spot and it was so brilliant to hire bikes and go riding around in our shorts and t-shirts in the brilliant weather at the beach. We explored a good 5 or 6km’s stretch before turning our bikes around to go and watch the kite surfers in action from the lavishly kitsch Sankara beach hotel bar where we met up with a girl we had chatted to in Nha Trang. After some quick
party plans were in place for the evening we said goodbye to Katie for the time being and headed to secure ourselves a spot at a roadside “cafe” (aka a local Vietnamese ladies fruit smoothly trolley strategically placed at a picnic site) where we watched the magnificent sun set!
Once the sun had said goodbye for the day we headed back to return our bikes and get ready to join a crew of 5 for a fun night out in Mui Ne, the highlights of which included racing around on the back of the Mui Ne motorcycle taxi drivers bikes between pubs till finally parking off on bean bags on the beach sand outside the roaming orange, old school, VW Combie beach bar, it was brilliant!
The following morning we got up early and headed out to see the pretty Cham temples before heading out on an afternoon motorcycle tour to see Fairy stream and the sand dunes. The 21+km, full afternoon, motorcycle trip was rather epic and decidedly random and touristy but the white sand dunes were well worth enduring the schlep!
When we returned to Hai Yen, carrying half of the white sand dunes in
Mui Ne Riding bikes
learning to catch fish early our bags, pockets and hair we bumped into Katie who had yet again rallied the troops for a proper Sunday roast. I couldn’t have been more excited at the prospect cause it had been a very very long time since I had seen a plate of food resembling anything like a Sunday Roast. And what a Sunday roast it was, the Englishman from Darby managed to pull out all the stops serving each of the nine of us a plate piled with roast chicken, veg, roast potatoes and even a Yorkshire pudding it was an incredible meal and we rolled out of there not having eaten that big a mean in a while! It might be random to go in search of an English Sunday roast in the heart of Vietnam but if you have been away from home for as long as many of us I would most definitely recommend you pay a visit to the Sizzler!
Mui Ne is the most perfect spot to get in some beach time, it’s a quiet quaint spot where you could quite happily veg out for a good three or four days if you have the time! If you have to
choose, choose Mui Ne over Dalat don’t by pass this little gem of a spot!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.395s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 16; qc: 82; dbt: 0.3605s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb