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Our time in Mui Ne (pronounced Moo Nay) started much like our time in Ko Samet, Thailand - at a budget guesthouse which left us unsatisfied. This hotel was actually a great value for the money and was clean and right on the beach but it did not have air conditioning and was located on the center beach which is relatively narrow and steep because of erosion. We are slowly starting to realize that we are just not happy at the beach if we’re staying in budget digs. So after arriving by bus from Saigon and eating lunch, we spent a couple of hours looking at the more deluxe hotels close to our budget guesthouse. Eventually we decided on Blue Ocean Resort which was $55/night and had lovely grounds (including a great pool) and a very nice room. We spent the first night sweating at our budget guesthouse looking forward to checking into Blue Ocean Resort the following day.
As with our time in Ko Samet, a day-by-day description of our time in Mui Ne would leave you asleep at your computer because it consisted mostly of swimming in the pool and lying at the beach. Instead, some of our
thoughts on our time in Mui Ne:
Mui Ne: From what we could tell from our short visit spent mostly lounging, Mui Ne is a very long town spread along one road with the beach on one side (where most of the resorts are located) and the restaurants located on the other side. Without bikes or motorbikes you are limited to the area close to your resort because the sidewalks are intermittent. There isn’t much to do in Mui Ne besides the beach although there are a couple of sand dunes a few kilometers outside of town which we skipped.
Food: The food in Mui Ne that we ate was much more expensive than in the other places we have been so far in Vietnam and not particularly interesting. The restaurant at our hotel was expensive given the offerings, which appeared to cater to their mostly German guests. We have to assume that the sausages (and other food more appropriate for tailgating) on the breakfast buffet were not for us.
Beach: The beach we moved to was on the western side and it was very pretty. The resort had large thatch umbrellas to shield you from the
sun and very comfortable lounge chairs. The sand was fairly white and clean but the water had bigger waves than in Ko Samet and the water was not clear. The beach is very nice but our judgment will forever be clouded by Ko Samet which had the nicest beach either of us has ever gone to (although we’re on a mission around the world to find a better beach).
Fishing: Close to our resort an entire section of the beach was covered with teacup shaped boats. The boats, called “tom” in Vietnamese, appear to be just large enough to hold a pair of men and several hundred feet of fishing nets. We watched at odd hours of the day as one man would paddle the round bowl of a boat while the other would spool out the nets in a long line parallel to the beach. After a few minutes they would gather the nets in, move further out to sea, and start the process over. One afternoon we saw more than a dozen of the tom bobbing in the same general area, and at one point a motorized boat began towing the tom all in a row to
another area. The parade of wicker boats looked very strange, particularly considering that the fishermen would throw bottles of water at each other.
Vietnamese at the beach: There were a good number of vacationing Vietnamese at our resort. Similar to what we saw from the Thais in Ko Samet, many of the Vietnamese went swimming in their everyday clothes, rather than a swimsuit. At the pool one day, a grandmother, in an outfit consisting of matching patterned shirt and pants, got completely into the pool to join her grandson. One of the interesting things we noticed is that the Vietnamese do not come out to the pool until late afternoon when the sun is very mild. We assume this is because pale skin is the beauty standard here and, unlike American women who rub oil on their skin in an attempt to turn brown, most Vietnamese women try very hard to avoid the sun either by staying inside or by using umbrellas, gloves and masks when they are outside.
Pool: The pool at our resort was large, devoid of people (especially prior to the late afternoon) and tepid. A cold pool would have been pretty nice and refreshing
actually but the tepid temperature was not bad. We haven’t found a pool in Vietnam yet with a deep end and this pool was no exception. As Amy is not that strong a swimmer, there are worse things. Our favorite part of the pool, however, was the Russians (we think) enjoying it on the morning that we checked out. The Russian girl appeared to be in her early 20s and was wearing a thong bikini. Her two male companions were in their late 40s or early 50s. The girl got into the water, swam to the swimup bar and pretended to be drinking tea, all captured on camera by one of the men. She then used one of the Vietnamese babies in the pool as a prop before she slowly crawled up the ladder, again for the camera, before finding a flower bush which she posed with in various positions. All for the camera as well as our shock, awe and pure enjoyment. There was definitely a “publicity shots for porn” feel about it. It was weird. The most disturbing part was when she started taking pictures of one of the men doing almost the exact same things she had
just done for the camera. In case you couldn’t figure this out on your own, old Russian guys in speedos should not slowly saunter out of the pool.
Capital One: We obtained a Capital One credit card before leaving the US because they are the only credit card company in the US which does not charge a fee for international transactions which is obviously very important for our trip. Unfortunately, Capital One requires you to call them every month to tell them that you are still traveling (in order to prevent fraudulent charges). We have tried to find a better way for this to work but they are insistent that this is the only way. This meant that the morning we left Mui Ne, we spent $27 in order to tell Capital One we are still traveling and save probably $5 in fees (while Capital One offers an international collect number, payphones are very rare in Vietnam. This means you have to pay an internet café or hotel for the use of their line regardless of whether you call a collect number or a toll number). We are currently threatening canceling and hoping that will cause them to come
up with a better solution but we wanted to let anyone thinking about Capital One know that the savings may in fact be losses.
For those of you keeping score in the battle of the beaches, here is what we think…..food - Ko Samet, beach offerings (chairs, etc.) - Mui Ne, actual beach - Ko Samet, pool - Mui Ne (there wasn’t one at our resort in Ko Samet), resort grounds - Mui Ne, our room - toss up but if we had to choose, Ko Samet…..overall, if given the choice, we would choose Ko Samet.
Perhaps the biggest difference between Ko Samet and Mui Ne was the feel of the respective resort areas. Ko Samet, consisting of locally owned resorts on the fringes of a national park, felt authentically Thai. During our time there we felt like we were able to enjoy the environment and learn a little more about the Thai culture (be it food or the various Thai staff and travelers we observed). Mui Ne, while attractive and charming, had no distinctively Vietnamese feel to it. Part of this must be the relative isolation of each resort but we are sure that the fact that
tourism is relatively new to Vietnam also plays a role.
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SalsaMay
MariaLinh
Re:Comment on It's Beach Time Again
Your pics beautiful. I will going there.