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So the next day we awoke at 7.45am to the realisation that we had slept though our alarm and the bus to Mui Ne was leaving at 8am. In a blind panic, we hurriedly packed all of our bags (the contents of which being spread out all over our room - tidiness still not being a strong point of ours.) We arrived at the bus station with about 2 minutes to spare and were greeted by our very first experience of a sleeper bus. The bus was set out like a normal bus with the exception that instead of having seats it had narrow little bunk beds stacked on top of each other. We were shown to the top back bunk beds where we had to work out how to stow our little bags, before settling down to nap the 5 hour journey away.
We arrived in Mui Ne mid afternoon, where we jumped on the back of two motorcycle taxis and were escorted around different hotels until we found one within our budget. Mui Ne is famous in Vietnam for its great red and white sand dunes, so once we were sorted; we headed down to a travel agent
to book a jeep trip around Mui Ne’s sites for early the next afternoon. Once the trip was booked, we had one of the worst pizzas I have ever had, before watching a very tense Arsenal match until the early hours (Tom has somehow managed to brainwash me into becoming fairly interested in football.)
At midday, the following day, the jeep arrived to take us to the first stop which was called the fairy stream. It began with an old lady forcing us to take our shoes off before entering the stream; she then insisted that we leave them behind with her, which we were slightly sceptical about. Upon entering the stream, a few kids latched onto us, pretending to be friendly before demanding money for their unofficial guide service, we managed to shake them off early on, so instead they continued to play, catching tiny fishes in their hands, until the next unsuspecting tourists stumbled upon them. The stream was very pretty, creating a canyon through the sand dunes, we tried to explore up through the cliffs but could only get so far before the sand scalded our bare feet forcing us to leap down into the stream
below.
We walked through the canyon stream for about an hour before trying to return to the jeep, at which point there was a heated discussion with the old lady from the beginning who was insisting we pay her an astronomical sum for the privilege of leaving our shoes on the bank. We threw her a small denomination; before running away barefoot, shoes in hand (cowards that we are) worried that her newly appeared bodyguards might be chasing us. After spending a while trying to locate our jeep and then the driver, from all of the other jeeps and drivers, we headed off to the next stop; the fishing village.
We could tell we had arrived by the smell that emanated from the pebble beach, as we walked towards it we saw hundreds of small boats moored at sea and big baskets along the shore that must have been used for fish, but now had small children playing in them. The fishing had actually taken place in the morning and all that remained were hundreds of abandoned shells and small animals dragged up from the bottom of the sea and left to perish on the shore. It was
quite an eye-opener to see how much pointless destruction is caused by this fishing, but at the same time it must be the only way that the locals can fish.
After the fishing village, we headed over to the white sand dunes. They were located quite far inland and looked like a tiny piece of desert had been moved to Mui Ne. First things first, we hired some plastic mats to go dune boarding, this meant walking for miles to get to and then up the dunes and then attempting to slide down them. Tom took to it straight away, sliding straight down and then running up without too much trouble. I on the other hand, tried to go down and didn’t budge. After the persistent tugging and pushing of a little girl, I eventually got moving only to slide about ten metres and then finding that the ten metres back up was pretty strenuous. The little girl, obviously deciding I was completely incompetent, eventually came down and attempted to drag me back up. I decided to sit the next few rides out, opting instead to take photos. After about an hour, we headed back to the jeep ready
to hit the red dunes in time for sunset, the only snag being that the jeep got stuck in the sand. With the rescue effort of about 6 other jeep drivers we eventually got moving again and reached the red dunes just in time for sundown. After clambering up and down the relentless red dunes, we finally found a part that was suitably isolated and without footprints. Here we sat to watch the sunset, before taking hundreds of photo’s attempting to get a semi-decent picture of just one set of footprints in the sand (perhaps we do have too much time on our hands.)
Once the sun was suitably low in the sky, we spent a while trying to locate the jeep again, before driving back to the hotel watching the beautiful sunset reflecting off of the sea. When we arrived at the hotel, I made the classic error of sitting on the bed, where immediately a handful of red sand poured out of me and all over their nice white sheets. In hindsight, this sand actually cursed every bed I slept in all the way to Hanoi, creeping from unknown nooks and crannies to make each night’s sleep
gritty and generally annoying. Oh happy, sandy times.
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Mum G
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Lovely Photo's
I loved these photo's - very arty! As Tom has clearly shown an aptitude for Sand boarding perhaps we'll manage to drag him along on our next ski trip and he can try his hand on snow! Hope you've managed to escape from Nepal by the time you read this! Take care Love Mumxxxxx