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Published: October 16th 2007
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Our little paradise
The only thing missing was an old guy selling Lilt. We woke up from our hostel to catch our bus to Mui Ne, a beach and fishing resort a few hours from Saigon. We weren't feeling particularly great due to the excesses of the night before so we weren't particularly looking forward to our bus trip. Those fish bowls had a lot to answer for!!
The bus was smaller and less air conditioned than what we were used to. After an uncomfortable 5 hour trip, we reached our destination and were desperate for a place to dump our stuff and rest our heads for a while. Because the bus company gets commission from certain hostels, we were dropped off at a place on the outskirts of town where we ended up taking a bungalow room as we were some distance from anywhere else. It wasn't the greatest to be honest, and we regretted it a bit, although with the lack of choice, it had to do.
One good thing about our accomodation was that it was right on the beach, although the beach wasn't as good as we had hoped for. There seemed to be a lot of debris lying about probably due to it having a fishing village
nearby so we never really stayed too long. After a powernap, we headed to explore our nearby surroundings and have dinner, this was when we realised how sparse it was. The food in Mui Ne mostly seemed to be seafood, or covered in fish sauce, which neither Emma or myself were too keen on, so food hunting was a bit trickier here. After our meal, it had gotten dark so we couldn't really do much more except head back and have a drink.
The next morning we were bright and breezy and ready to explore our rural, beach haven. We rented bicycles out from our hostel as we realised we were out of cash and needed an ATM. We ended up cycling into the village to find the nearest (and only) ATM. Following a cash injection we decided to cycle in the other direction, which was really nice providing us with some good photo opportunities, although it was also very hot and tiring. We worked out we did around 12 miles on the bikes, which was more than we meant too, but it might help us get in shape.
We returned to the beach again and sat on
Beside our hostel
Taken from beside our hostel. sun loungers but it just wasn't too appealing so didn't stay too long. The hostel was offering a half day tour to the sand dunes nearby so we opted to do that for the next day.
This proved to be the highlight of our time in Mui Ne. We had to get up at 4am (!!) as the trip involved watching the sunrise on the dunes. Mui Ne, although a beach attraction, is also sheltered by a desert of sand, some of which has spectacularly big dunes. We arrived by jeep at the White Sand Dunes, hoping that it was going to drive in the sand, however sadly we had to trek up to it with a 10 year old for a guide. This is where we got to sand sled!
Sand sledding is pretty much exactly how it sounds. Sledding on sand instead of snow and going down head first too. It was great fun, but climbing the dunes again was very tiring, not just because they were pretty steep, but because the ground was constantly giving way. Plus, we got completely covered in sand and it seemed to go everywhere!
After this, we went to
Sand dunes catching the morning light
We were soon to be sledding down these. the Red Canyon. This canyon was basically a few small chasms which led back to a cliff, although it was all made of sand. We got even more covered with sand and an attempt I made to climb the cliff at the back of the canyon didn't really work as my sandals weren't exactly the ideal climbing footwear. My camera seemed to stop working too due to sand intake which worried me for a bit, as thought I may have to buy another new camera. The sand must have fallen out later as it got back to normal, although not for the rest of the trip.
The third part of the trip was to the Red Sand Dunes, which was similar to the white ones, but red sand instead (surprisingly). It was tourist central though so we didn't stay too long, not even to go sand sledding again. The dunes didn't look too great when they were covered with footprints and tourists.
The next stop was the fishing village itself which we'd seen ourselves the day before so this was nothing new. It was a lot busier at this time of the morning though (probably about 8am) and
Us
Kind of emphasises the height difference. it was fun to watch them go about their work in their cone hats and the long carrying supports on their back. Although Emma did feel a bit guilty that we were sitting relaxing and they were all working so hard!!
Our final stop on the tour was the Fairy Stream. It was a strange name, but it was very relaxing as we got to walk in a stream upriver for about 45 minutes in the sun and climbed some rocks. We had children guides again appearing out of nowhere, and although they were polite, when they started asking for money at the end (as we'd expected) one of the girls got annoyed at how low our offering was, when it was actually fairly reasonable, so Emma said that if she wasnt happy she would take it back. Needless to say the girl accepted.
When we got back to our hostel, we took a much needed shower trying to get all the sand out. It had been a really great tour, but we needed some time out of the sun for a bit as it had exhausted us. In the afternoon, we got our bus booked to Dalat
Sledding
It was fun but you end up with sand everywhere. for the next day as there really wasn't much else to do in Mui Ne and we'd pretty much seen it all. Hopping onto the internet to put pictures up for our blog, we encountered some problems. Our USB drive, which had been behaving suspiciously since Chiang Mai, was being flagged up for worms and viruses. We had all our pictures on here so we would have been gutted to lose it all. It didn't help that every computer we were using let the USB work in different ways.
Eventually had to give up and get dinner and decided we would burn it onto CD or DVD as soon as we could (Mui Ne didn't exactly have great technology facilities) or even buy a new USB drive to copy it on. But if you're reading this with pictures included, disaster has been averted.
In the evening, we spent some time in our room. We had gotten sick of this room as we realised how grubby and dirty it was and we never seemed to feel that we were clean. This was the first point of our trip we realised we missed some home comforts and indeed other comforts
Red Canyon
The "rocks" weren't as stable as they look though. such as air conditioning. However, it was only one more night so we packed up our stuff and got ready to flit again to Dalat the following afternoon.
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