Mui Ne Holiday Part 2

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Today we joined Mr. Binh and his Easy Riders for a day of touring around Mui Ne. If you're ever in Mui Ne, look for Mr. Binh, his tours are fun, safe, and worth writing about in travel blogs! :-) Mr. Binh has a great crew of guys working for him, even if he himself can get a little lazy!

We had planned to do a 2 hour trek up Tac Cu Mountain to see the 49 metre lying buddha on top of the mountain. However, after an almost 2 hour motorbike ride to the mountain, our "numb bums" made us think otherwise. A two minute cable car ride up the mountain for 50,000 dong (about US$3.50) made more sense! The view from the cable car was spectacular. We saw villages, bambo forest, and the seascapes from this height. The mountain side jungle was filled with proper exotic animal sounds and lush overgrown vegetation and we can't wait to hike it next time. After we descended from the cable car, there was about a 20 minute walk with requisite steep stairs to see the famous Buddha. We could see the original steep and worn path cut into the mountainside by the original monks and it looked straight out of a Shaolin exercise video.

The Buddha on Tac Cu has become an important pilgrimage centre for Buddhists, however on this day, it was a field trip day for the kids. Due respect to early Canadian settlers but beeswax candles at Pioneer Village pale incomparison, when you can see the giant lying Buddha. We had fun talking with the kids, taking pictures with them, and admiring the serene Buddha, before our ride down.

Near Ta Cu mountain were thousands of neat rows of dragon fruit growing. Dragon Fruit is so readily available here, and even the sangria we had at the bar had dragon fruit in it, yummy!

Our motorbike drivers then took us to see the 9th century Po Shanu Cham Towers, which occupied a hill with sweeping views of the waters filled with fishing boats, and a cemetary filled with colourful head stones and mausoleams.

On our way back to the resort we stopped at a place where they made Nauc Mam (fish sauce) the towns speciality. Let me tell you, that smell is STRONG and the process would cause many to second guess its yumminess!! I am sure Asians upon seeing the process of aging Stilton would reconsider Western sanity.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon reading poolside with mango daiquiris and Tiger beers. We ended up meeting some friendly American travelers, Erin, Laura and Kyle who were interested in joining us for the Sunrise tour we had planned with Mr. Binh and his Easy Riders for the next day. We also met a Canadian from Calgary, who had just married a Vietnamese woman and was trying to get her to Canada. His thoughts of Vietnam was a "poverty-stricken" country where, according to him, 99% of Vietnamese just want to "get out!" We did not quite see it that way.

We were not sure what to expect about Vietnam, and our conversations with other travellers proved that a lot of us thought a like. The "third-world" status that Vietnam has, does not seem accurate for Bianca being from India, where "third-world" really means poverty. There are no slums, hardly no begging at all (we can probably count the number of times) and all people work in the city and have homes to live. The parks, in Saigon especially, are beautifully manicured, streets are clean, and in no way compares to the "third-world" that we have seen before. We could go on about a traditionally agriculture based country transitioning to urban enterprise or the multiple conflicts with world powers in this small countries history or the recovery from damaging US embargoes just a decade ago, etc. but of course, this is all based on each persons individual knowledege, experiences, etc. We took more exception to the fact that the food is "nothing to write home about" as per the Canadian we just met.

After a nice dinner of grilled tuna for Bianca, and grilled baracuda for Thai, we met our American friends for some exotic asian sangria before ending our night before the 5 am ride to beat the sunrise the next morning.

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Comments

[Blanche]

I know where Bianca is ...
the tallest in the lot !!

[Goose's Brother]

I know where waldo is!
Is she the one in the white shirt, precariously perched and almost frighteningly similar to her teenage days?