The rain it raineth every day

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Mui Ne started off as a little fishing village on the coast, it lies about 4 hours north from Ho Chi Minh, but the area is fast becoming a popular tourist area and there is now a lot of small resorts built along the coast line, most of them are beach hut style places or similar and it doesn't feel like the area is being too spoilt by it all as they are not set right on top of the village itself but further down the road. The bus dropped us off at one end of the road and with all our bags we couldn't be bothered to go looking at all the different hotels and beach huts so we just stayed at Thai Hoa resort where they had dropped us. It was a pretty little place on the beach with fairly cheap rooms and as I only planned to spend a couple of nights here I wasn't too worried about where I ended up.

feeling crabbie

Although it wasn't sunny, it was nice and warm and so I went straight for a snooze on the beach to relax after the chaos of my time in Ho Chi Minh and the Mekong Delta. There isn't much else to do in Mui Ne anyway, there are a few trips in the area you can do but the main reason for a stop here is to relax on the beach. Even the nightlife is fairly low key, we were quite a few kilometres away from the main bar area, but apparently that only consisted of about 2 or 3 small bars anyway, it's really a place to lie back and take some time to get your energy back. We sat out reading in the evening and then Aaron and I went out for something to eat, there are a few litte places dotted along the road, the food is nice but as I was starting to learn, there aren't that many things to chose between and it often all has a very similar flavour and gets a bit tired after a while. But we had some entertainment during dinner, one of the restauraunts dogs had found a crab by the road and was trying to catch it, the poor crab had only one claw left and was struggling to fight of the little pup and in the end the dog managed to grab it and throw it onto its back, you could hear its shell crack. After that the dog wasn't interested as the crab had stopped moving and wasn't proving to be much of a challenge anymore. I was a bit upset about the poor crabs fate and could see its legs still trying to move, although it obviously wasn't going to be able to recover, so I made Aaron throw it on the road so it would get run over and put out of its misery. It took a while though as there isn't much traffic around and as usual everyone is on bikes so we had to sit and watch for ages watching several bikes whiz just by him before he actually got squashed properly. After dinner we went to a nearby bar and met a couple of guys, Nathan and John and spent the evening playing pool and chatting in the quiet bar, a nice chilled night.

sand surfing

Aaron was off the next day on his non-stop 40 hour bus journey to Hanoi, rather him than me.... Although it was over cast again I relaxed on the beach and then treated myself to my first massage, I was so looking forward to it after 5 months of carrying around a stupidly heavy back pack (everyone who lifts it for me asks what on earth I've got in it, its about twice as heavy as everyone elses for some reason), but as soon as she started I regretted it. It reminded me of my massage in Malaysia and was just as painful, she spent most of the hour hitting me in various different ways and considering how small she was she could hit very hard, I didn't enjoy it all and it wasn't relaxing in the least so I'll just have to keep trying until I find a good one. I had a quiet night, making the most of the peaceful atmosphere and to make sure I was up early for a trip out to the sandunes. I met a local guy called Huy and he tried to talk me into getting up for the sunrise at 5am but I managed to talk him round to an 8am start instead. So we met in the morning and headed off on his bike through the fishing village with the hundreds of boats bobbing on the water and along to the red canyon. He took me for a walk through the canyon up to the top but the sand and stone is so soft that I nearly fell down quite a few times and he just laughed at me as he skipped over and up without missing his footing once. I got completely covered in red chalk and then we went down to the red sand dunes and I got even more sand on me as I slid down the dunes. There are a load of little kids with plastic sheets for you, they come running up and grab you and take you off up the dunes and push you down on their plastic slides, I spoke to a couple of them and they told me this is what they do every single day, wait for the tourists to come and make money by offering slides down the dunes. Huy then took me to the fairy stream, I tried to ask him why it was called that but he didn't seem to understand what I was asking or he didn't know, but its a stream of what looks like red water due to the colour of the sand and you walk your way along it in the water for about 600 metres until you get to a small water fall. It was starting to get really hot by this time and so it was nice just to walk along in the cool water although when we were on our way back Huy pointed out some snakes (yet more snake encounters) swimming around in the water which didn't make me feel too happy, but he just laughed at me and shrugged and carried on so I presume they weren't dangerous....

the last of the sunshine...

When I got back to my hotel to pack the sun was well and truly out and I managed about 1 hour of sunbathing before I had to get the bus up to Nah-Trang where I had been warned that it was the rainy season at the moment. But I thought that would mean a couple of hours of heavy downpour a day and then lovely hot weather the rest of the time..... I was wrong. We arrived in the evening and it was absolutley bucketing it down and so again I just stayed at the hotel the bus dropped me off at rather than tramp the streets with my bags in the rain trying to find anywhere else. I went out for something to eat with a girl I'd met on the bus and it was still raining, we moved on to a bar and it was still raining, we moved to another bar and it was still raining, we left the bar at about 2am and it was still raining, I woke up in the morning and it was still raining, I tried to find my way to the markets and it was still raining..... Its the sort of rain the soaks you as soon as you step in it and I was told it hadn't stopped for days and days and wasn't about to either.

Nah-Trang is a very popular beach town with tourists and there are boat trips out to the islands and its meant to be a great place for snorkelling and has a really busy night life, but there weren't that many people around and it was hard to do anything with the constant rain coming down. The bar had been quite busy the night before but without being able to do much in the day I just couldn't face staying around any longer and got myself booked onto the bus that night to go up to Hoi An.

a bus load of booze

I was ready for a quiet journey of trying to sleep as the bus would take about 13 hours, but a couple of guys got on and sat opposite me and started talking to me and offered me some rum and coke and basically decided they were going to stay up all night and enjoy the ride. I didn't have any ear plugs so thought it best to join them as there was no way I was going to be able to sleep through their chat. One of them was from Texas and one from Sweden and we all had pretty different ideas on the world and various issues and it was quite an interesting night of conversations until we'd finished the rum and the beers and slowly started to doze off to sleep. I actually managed to sleep well for the last few hours of the bus trip and when we got Hoi An at about 6am I set off to look around and find somewhere to stay, but after five mintues walking with my bags I was desperate to find anywhere and grabbed the nearest place and went for a lie down.

arriving in Hoi An

I had a little look around the town and straight away fell in love with the place. It's a beautiful little town built by the river and even has a slight mediteranean feel to it with the brightly painted cafes and restauraunts on the water. It's a very touristy place and geared for westerners with the type of food on offer and the bars and things, it was hard to find little places to eat where the locals go too but it was still great with a really lively market and some beautiful little temples. I got a motorbike down to the beach for a walk, it wasn't quite warm enough for sunbathing and was very overcast again, but as soon as I stepped on the beach I was grabbed and talked into a foot massage, by the time she'd finished there was about 7 ladies sat around me chatting away and we tried to talk as best we could, but with my incredibly limited Vietnamese(I know three words....), it was quite difficult so it was mostly lots of smiling and giggling, they seem to be always either smiling or laughing which is wonderful. I don't think I can say I've seen anyone get angry or mad here, they always seem calm and relaxed and take everything in their stride, there's just no stress at all. Saying that though, I was told about a huge fight at the Sailing Club bar in Nah-Trang that happened just after I'd left, all of a sudden there were two local gangs throwing glasses and bottles and chairs with blood everywhere, I don't know what or why it happened but it sounded terrible. Also I have heard from other travellers about their experiences of people being very aggresive about trying to make them buy things and people being quite rude, but its not really been my overall experience I wouldn't say. Anyway, after my foot massage and giggle with the ladies I walked back to town from the beach and had a look around the market back in Hoi An but the main business here, and what everyone finds them selves indulging in, is tailored clothes. Every other shop is a tailors and the pride themselves on being able to make anything for you, absolutley anything at all. They have magazines and catalogues and you chose what you want they take the measurements and they make it up for you in a day or so, for a very reasonable price. I had made sure I had a little money to get myself a top or some trousers, but I found myself ordering a winter coat and two tops on my first trip, at my next fitting I ordered another top and some trousers and a pair of shoes.....Its very hard to stop yourself and they are very persuasive sales women.

more buses and booze....

For my first night out I was quite happy just going to grab something to eat and having a couple of beers, I had been told that the bars shut at 11pm here and they are pretty strict about this and there are only a couple of them about anyway so I wasn't banking on a big night out. But as I was walking along I walked passed this bloke and we slowly started to recognise each other, it was Neil from way back in New Zealand, I had spent a few days with him and his mates in Fox Glacier and Queenstown, he was travelling with his girlfriend in an organised tour of the country so I went off to the pub with him to meet up with his group. Ten minutes later and there was a tap on my shoulder and Nathan and John from Mui Ne were there saying hello with another bloke they had met in Nah-Trang who happened to be someone called Guy that I had already met on my Mekong Delta trip the week before. Finally two other folk came over, Nina and Bob, who were now travelling with the three blokes and they had been on my night bus up from Nah-Trang the night before.... It seems Vietnam is a small world for travellers! We all found ourselves in the same place as it is pretty much the only bar and in Hoi An.

The evening had just go going by the time 11pm came around so we were very pleased when someone came round and told us if we walked down the street and waited on the corner a bus would come along and take us out to the Full Moon bar about 4 kilometres away. So a big group of us walked out in the rain and managed to squeeze ourselves onto the minibus with people hanging out of the door and sitting on the floor. I had presumed the bar was in a close-by town but it was just in the middle of nowhere, it seems the bar closing times are very strict in this area and so this bar was not much more than a small shed set up for late night drinking away from the town. It was a really good night as everyone had met each other in the pub in town or on the bus and there was a pool table as usual (the Vietnamese love their pool and the women are really good). We had to get motorbikes back to town, they just sit outside all night and morning waiting for us to stumble out and hop on the back and trust they can see where they're going in the dark.

Cuc and cooking

After a very late night and only about 3 hours sleep I had to get up for a clothes fitting, I was still half asleep as I tried my clothes on and my guard was down as I was expertly talked into going along for a massage by a lady called Madame Cuc. She had a little room in the market place and you can hear all the hustle and bustle as you lie there, and this time it was much much better and very relaxing thankfully. She also talked me into having a pedicure, she is definitley a good business women but also really friendly and chatty and was showing me pictures of her daughter. As I said before all the women just seem so friendly and they don't stop hugging you, they seem to be obsessed with my skin for some reason and keep pinching my arms and cheeks.

I managed to sneak in a few hours sleep in the afternoon as it had started to rain on and off quite heavily so I didn't feel too guilty about wasting the day. It was a much quieter night out at the bar, but I met up with Nathan, John, Guy, Nina and Bob again for a few drinks. The next day I tried to see a bit more of town, although the rain was falling more frequently which made it a bit of a struggle. It's amazing how quickly everything changes, the streets will be full and then the rain starts and everyone disappears, all the bikes and everything, and then as soon as it stops everyone appears again, this time wearing huge plastic poncho's covering themselves and thier bikes, ready for the next downpour. I was grabbed Madame Cuc again and she threaded my legs for me, basically removing hair using a cotton thread, it takes a while and stings a bit but the results are brilliant.

In the evening I went to a Vietnamese cooking class at Hai Cafe, the chef was really funny and explained everything really well, I didn't get to cook whole dishes myself but we all had a go at making spring roles and then various people helped with different parts of the menu as he explained it all. We were shown how to cook using banana leaves (although I"m not sure how useful that will be back home....) and he told us a lot about cooking methods and the reasons for different foods that they use. Afterwards dinner was the food that we'd made, and it was all gorgeous, the best food I have eaten in Vietnam. We had squid salad, spring rolls, fish cooked in banana leaves and also White Rose and special wantons, two recipes that they weren't allowed to show us as there is only one family in Hoi An that has the recipe and its kept a secret. Hopefully I'll be able to wow you with my cooking skills when I get back home now...... Back to the Tam Tam bar afterwards and everyone was in there again playing pool, I met another couple of guys from Australia, Tim and Rowan and we all headed down tothe Full Moon bar again, but not so many people went as the first night and after a few games of pool I decided to get off home to bed. Just after I set off on my motorbike taxi it started to pour down again and so we had to pull in and wait for a while as the driver couldn't see where he was going. I hopped off the bike the wrong way without thinking and caught my leg on the exhaust pipe and so now I have a lovely burn mark on my calf to add to all the other scars, beautiful.

yet more rain??

Although I could have stayed a lot longer in Hoi An I needed to keep moving, with only a couple of weeks left in Vietnam and of my whole trip (gulp!) I wanted to make sure I saw as much as possible. Also Nina, nathan, Bob, Guy and John were all getting the bus up to Hue Monday afternoon which was when I had been thinking about leaving too so we all decided to go together. I picked up my clothes and said goodbye to the girls and to madame Cuc who invited me to her home to meet her husband and daughter next time I out in Vietnam. After nearly getting put on the wrong bus and running all over town with my bags I managed to get on the right bus and met up with everyone and off we went to Hue. I read a little bit about it and was absolutley thrilled to hear that Hue has the most rain fall in the whole of Vietnam..... After my experience in Nah-Trang and Hoi An I was slightly worried about just how rainy Hue could possibly be???!!

(ps. I'm just downloading my photos and the charming man in the internet cafe wanted to look at the and didn't believe it was me because the girl in the photo's looked like a fatty.....nice. I suppose it means I don't in real life as much but still...........)

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