Advertisement
Published: February 20th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Appologies for this negative blog entry, we've had a bad week...........
We got a bus from Saigon to beach town Mui Ne just before Lunar New Year. We got off on the wrong foot with Mui Ne. We love a beach so maybe we were having an off day but we thought Mui Ne had the same old, tired format of other tourist beach towns in Asia - average beach, litter, grey sea, expensive beach resorts aimed at rich westeners who wear tailored shorts and deck shoes, too many restaurants and not enough customers and rip off prices. First night we stayed in the only available room which was a very grotty room that smelt strongly of dettol (for the crazy price of $12!!) but then we moved into a much nicer, more upmarket place with a pool and a backpacker vibe for only a couple of dollars more!
The New Year holidays meant we wouldn't be able to get a bus out until after the weekend so we had 4 nights to kill. Lacking in motivation, we didn't explore the area to it's full potential, prefering instead to laze by the pool and on the beach. We refused
to pay 11 pounds for a tiny tube of sun screen so stayed in the shade mostly. We did hire a scooter and visit the local fishing village, which was cool because they still use traditional round woven fishing boats. The thing to do in Mui Ne is wind and kite surfing as the coast line is so blustery. It would have been great to have a go or have lessons but it was a bit pricey so we just watched instead. In the afternoons, there would be over 100 kite surfers out, which was wonderful to watch. We ate at some very poor value restaurants (we think all the good places closed for Tet) and got sick from the food. Business opportunity available for a decent eatery in this place that also sells reasonably priced sun cream!
We rode to the next town of Phan Thiet for Lunar New Years Eve. We left our bike in the care of the parking attendants at a posh coffee house on the road into town as the town centre was jam packed with people and scooters (we knew we'd loose the bike if we left it there!) and walked into the
centre, where we waited in a crowd of thousands for midnight. It was very civilised, no one was drinking or merrymaking like we are used to at NYE. At midnight everyone cheered as fireworks were set off the bridge over the river. The loudest bangs got the biggest screams of delight. When it was over there was a mass exodus and the biggest grid locked scooter traffic jam we have ever seen. We were glad we'd walked and zig zagged our way back to the coffee house where we had drinks, watched Man City v Stoke live and waited for the mayhem to subside.
Happy New Year - Chuc Mung Nam Moi!!!
Our bus to Da Lat the next day was memorable for all the wrong reasons. The minibus was late, old, hot and over full. We stopped for half an hour while they tried to queeze a large Vietnamese family plus luggage on the bus but they wouldn't fit and the family refused to get on without seats so there was a huge argument. When we finally set off again we stopped after a short while to help another tourist bus change a flat tyre. All the
travellers of this bus were out on the side of the road arguing that the bus was overloaded and not safe. To be fair, all buses have bald tyres here not just theirs. Then I realised that my bag was no longer on our bus and we had a right palava trying to establish where it was with the already irrate non english speaking driver. Turns out they put it on this other bus so I put it back on the massive bag pile, panic over!
After a 5+ hour slow bumpy journey we arrived in cool mountainous Da Lat and found a nice but tremendously over priced hotel close to the town centre. We went to the central street market for some pho and wandered into the Tet Fair, a rather sad affair with fun fair rides and games for kids (except some of the prizes were fags and booze!!). We sat and had a beer and took part in a game of bingo or BANG SO but didn't win anything. Strange that the entertainment inbetween bingo games was a lady-boy bikini fashion show as the audience was mostly families with young children!
Next day we hired
a scooter and along with a lovely couple from Brighton we went to explore the area. We visited the Tuyen Lam reservoir surrounded by lush green forest and the pretty Truc Lam Buddhist pagoda. We took a cable car ride over the hills and pine forests and got some amazing views over Da Lat and the busy patchwork veg growing farm land and polytunnels. Then we went to check out Dalanta waterfalls but the place was a circus (pretty waterfall ruined by rollercoaster rides, piped pop music and souvenier shops selling tat!). We rode to Tiger Waterfall, a much more natural and peaceful place. Dee did some climbing next to the falls but the rocks were slippy so he fell, thankfully nothing injured but his pride! It was very cold that evening so we ate in a chilled backpackers cafe, met loads of nice people and grumbled about how rubbish Tet was.
The Tet holidays were getting busier so when we tired to find a new hotel (ours was fully booked) we really struggled (must have looked at 100+ hotels) and were frustrated that cheap, terrible quality guest houses that would normally charge < $5 for a double room
were now asking $40!! We eventually found a room with 2 beds and ended up sharing it with a couple called Lisa and Jay we'd met the night before because they had no where to stay. That day was pretty much taken up with accomodation seaching but we did manage to make it to The Crazy House, a very excentric building built by a clearly insane but genious local architect. After an argument with the theiving owner of the scooter we'd hired, that was it, we'd had enough and booked our bus tickets outta there.
Our last day in Da Lat wasn't great, we got up super early to catch the 7am bus only to be told that it was cancelled because of Tet holiday traffic jams. Bloody Tet. The Lonely Planet should warn people not to visit Vietnam during this festival. We waited for 8 hours in the hotel lobby and the bus finally showed up at 3pm! Another slow bumpy journey and we arrived in beach city Nha Trang. We were welcomed by the Blackpool style illuminations and the streets busy with holiday makers, it looked kinda fun. We found a windowless room for a criminal $27
(Tet price!) and went out in search of a cold beer. There were plenty of backpacker bars doing drink promotions and we found our friends (Ben, Ben & Ruth) so had a good time. We spent a couple of days lazing in Nha Trang, on the beach (there's not that much to do really) as we couldn't get a bus north for love nor money. Finally we got a night bus to Hue on the Sunday night.....looking forward to the fact that Tet would be officially over the next day and calm would be restored to Vietnam once more.......
Happy New Year?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.116s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 58; dbt: 0.0549s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Chris & Jenny
non-member comment
Tet=tat
Not too bad having thefirst negative blog after 4 months. By now you are probably having a great time further north and tet is forgotten. Enjoy the rest of your trip love you loads Chris Jen Grannies