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Published: December 16th 2007
( the things we would have liked to have known before the trip are at the end! 😊)
Nothing like a 4:45am jeep ride to start the day 😊. We were joined on the tour by another couple, Mark and Juilet.
The ride to the
White Sand Dunes was stunning. It reminded me of home a bit. As the sky started to get lighter as we headed further into the country. It was a
lot more space here than any other place we’ve seen so far! I guess that’s what was reminding me of home. The small shrubs in yellowy sand and long stretches of grass were definitely not unlike the landscapes we see in SA.
We were dropped off at a small hut in the middle of nowhere, somewhat confused we climbed out of the jeep. We looked at each other a bit unsure of what to do, when a boy carrying a few plastic sliding boards under his arm. Our guide seemed to nod in his general direction, so we assumed that we should follow him…
He lead us through a small pine forest and passed a pond and finally up onto the dunes. 😱
There were only 5 or 6 hills at most, but they were all steep! He took us to the smallest looking slope, and sat down with his boards. That’s it. He just sat. We walked up to him how much he wanted for us to hire the boards and he showed us 3 fingers. We said no, that that was too much, so he started looking all sulky and completely ignored our attempts to negotiate. He wouldn’t even look at us. Too bad for him, the Mark and Juliet were on just as much of a budget as we were and we couldn’t afford that. Eventually he agreed to D20 000 each.
There was only one other couple there with their guide, and they were not sliding, so we asked our rather reluctant guide to show us how to do it before we paid him. (we’d read stories of the boards not sliding at all and the whole thing being a big waste of money.) so he did, and boy did he fly down!
Soon we were all giving it a go, taking turns to take photos and film each other. We skidded and slid down about 4
different, increasingly daunting slopes. It was super fun! I think I stained my favourite blue halter neck top… and I know I had sand in unmentionable places by the time we left! Darrell was completely out of breath, after not quite managing to kill himself after his “OK just one more time’es, and ‘wait wait watch this!’es 😱 it was
awesome and well worth the D20 000.
Next up on the tour were the
Yellow Sand Dunes. These were rather disappointing to say the least. There were also only a handful of dunes, orangey red in colour, and covered with touts and tourists. It had rained last night and perhaps, combined with the heaps of footprints all over the place, so the few tourists who on boards really weren’t going anywhere at all! We hung around a bit admiring the view, you know, the sea sparkling in the sun, the quaint fishing boats, the couple getting married on the far dune… Huh??!
Back in the jeep again and on to the next stop on our list, the
Fish Market. We were greeted into the market by an
unbelievable smell of rotten fish! The fishing boats in the harbour
Cows on the road
Aw.. I'm starting to feel homesick.were all identically painted in red and blue paint.
We walked down some concrete stairs to the harbour where the fisher-ladies were busy sorting the catch of the day. The first pile looked like miniature but elongated cat fish, then 2 big piles of scallops, the workers expertly opening the shells with a small flat piece of metal at the rate of about 1/sec! There were a few other bits and pieces around, small piles of octopus, a man cleaning cuttlefish, and the remains of fish that once were.
We didn’t really stay long here either. We made our way back up the stairs, passed the lady cutting up meat on her blood soaked piece of cardboard on the pavement, and got back into the jeep for our last stop.
Our driver dropped us of at another unlikely looking venue, where as before, we were picked up by a bunch of kids acting as our guides. We followed them to an orange river where they told us to roll up our pants and get in!
The water was pretty fast moving and we were told to be careful of the rocks 😞. The bank on our right
The fish market
I'm sure if try really carefully, you can smell it. was covered in thick greenery, while the one on our left started to turn into a giant bright red mass of rock! Our guide lead us into one of the deep crevices to show us some of the sinking sand! Sinking sand! How cool!
The variety of colour in the clay was amazing! Colours ranged from light grey to bright red!
We wondered quite far up the stream, our guides all asking the typical “where you from? Ah America! (No South Africa… “ah!”) 😊 What’s your name? Where you been? … questions. Eventually, because of all the rain the area had had last night, we were told that the river was getting too deep to walk in, and we’d have to get out and walk on the bank instead.
This was great fun! Our guide spent a lot of time showing us all the fruits that were being grown, and explaining their names to us. He even got his friend co climb a coconut tree for us! We ended up at a small yet very scenic waterfall, the turning around point.
Just because we were heading back the same way, our guides kept finding new things
Fairy Stream
Walking upriver to show us! The plants that bent and folded up when you touched then, leaves that stay dry no matter what you put on them (mud/water… it just slides off 😱!), ultra quick sand that sucks you up to the middle of your thighs, and 4 leaf clovers! They were fantastic!
We were dropped off back at our resort at about 9:35… plenty of time for breakfast 😊
We spent the rest of the day moseying up and down the beachside street, looking in at all the small beach shops. I even bought a bikini!
The wind looked like it might start picking up (Darrell’s a kiteboarding type and gets more excited than a Jack Russell at food time when the wind’s right) so we headed over to Jibes (the kiting place) and hung out there for a bit.
Unfortunately, although the wind did make a start, it never materialized into anything kite-able, so we forced ourselves to read books on the beach, get burned and get $1 coconut shakes brought to us on a silver tray… not bad…
I don’t think I’ve ever been so relaxed!
Check out the video (below) of our Rice fields and coco palms
Along the banks of the stream sandboarding escapades. They're both the same flick, but one's better quality and the other is a faster download
Mui Ne - Things we'd like to have known
* If you’re going budget and haven’t booked accommodation, there are plenty of places available with touts waiting at the bus stop to take you at 1am!
* If you go to the dunes, try to go in the morning
before all the other tourists. Once a few people have run up and down the dunes leaving bumpy foot prints all over the place, it’s not as much fun to slide on… painful even…a small mound of sand correctly positioned can give quite a winding!
* Bikinis and other cossies (swim suits) are really cheap, but a medium in western sizes is about an extra extra large in Vietnamese sizes and is about the biggest they have! Also, the white board shorts go see through!
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Burgert
non-member comment
A scene from the movies?
You guys have the most beautiful pics! Love the ouc of Cathy walking in the river stream, kinda reminds me of Apocalypse Now (without the violence obviously!) Not that it was a good film. Anyhow... Think you guys must consider a feedback (almost like missions) where you invite mates over for a good meal (homecooked, obviously, also Vietnamese) and have a slideshow once you are back in good ol' SA - and for suggesting it I'm booking myself a seat, thank you very much! :)