Welcome to kite-surfing central

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We just spent a week at Mui Ne Beach in Phan Thiet, a resort town covering a 10 km stretch, with beachside resorts on one side of the strip and roadside restaurants and bars on the other. At the far end of the beach is a small fishing village, but for the most part, Mui Ne exists to cater to the tourist contingent. It’s hot, but tolerable, every day and cool every night, thanks to a steady wind that moves over the area.

The weather and geographic conditions in Mui Ne make it ideal for kite-surfing, and at any point during the afternoon we could count 30-40 kites dotting the skyline down the beach. Our hotel is situated next to the biggest kite centre on the beach. Given the perfect conditions, low cost of living, remarkable skill, and ethnic diversity of these athletes, we believe we have been treated to watching some of the best in the world. Many enjoyable hours have been spent sitting mesmerized on our beach chairs. With little time to really learn, it wasn’t worth the $90 full-day fee to give it a go, but Marc has his own fantasy of doing it one day, and plans on coming back.

We spend most of each day idling: lazing around our room, laying on the beach, reading, napping, and only really putting on more than our bathing suits to go out and find food. Our biggest concerns were the delicate care of various sunburned patches of skin and trying to keep sand out of the bed.

On Thursday, Marc unknowingly ended his Valentine’s Day boycott when we, forgetting that it was V-Day, found ourselves out for dinner at a nice restaurant, surrounded by dozens of other couples, with Bryan Adams “Everything I Do…” playing in the background. We laughed at, but embraced our situation, which just kept improving: Bryan Adams cut out to an excellent live band playing acoustic melodies with a Vietnamese flavour, and the waitress snuck Marc a rose to give to me at dinner. Awww.

On Friday morning, we took a half-day tour of the area, which, oddly enough, includes two separate sand dune sights - one white and one red. We were keen enough to choose the sunrise tour, which had us on the road by 5 a.m. We arrived just in time to witness the surreal vision of the white sand dunes moments before the fading pinks and blues turned to bright oranges as the sun snuck up in the sky.

We haven’t gone out of our way to meet anyone, but enjoy finding people that remind us of those we know from home. There’s one guy who, from afar, dressed, walked and sort of looked like Uncle Barry, but on closer inspection, his face looked a lot like Herbie’s. Therefore, we call him Uncle Herbie, and he seems to show up everywhere we go, making it even funnier, of course.

Tomorrow we board another bus, this time onto Dalat, an inland, mountainous city that is apparently famous for its “kitsch.” The bus trips are necessary, but frightening, as it seems all drivers are maniacs. We try not to look out the front of the bus, as watching the faces of the people who are looking out onto oncoming traffic is worrisome enough.

Enjoy the photos - wish you could be here with us.

The Smiths

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Photos

Mui Ne Beach
View from our beach chairs

Dune
With Lotus Lake in the background. The entire area was so beautiful, as evidenced by the two sets of wedding photos being taken there that morning as well.

Our ride
Looks a little worse for wear, doesn't it? After each stop on the tour, the driver would disappear under the hood with a bottle of water.

Red sand dunes
The red sand dunes were more popular with the locals, mostly because of it's more central location - just right in the middle of town. It was strange.

Finding treasures
A small boy collects items on the stairs that lead from the main highway down to the fishing village at the end of town.

Plug your nose
Vats of fish oil. We cannot convey the rankness.

Fairy stream
The last stop on our tour was known as Fairy Stream, an extremely shallow stream over a bed of soft red sand. The flow came from rainwater settling down into the bottom of the sandy cliffs and running out into the narrow space between the cliffs and the coconut trees. As far as we can tell, it hasn't rained here in three months, but the water continues to seep out.

Comments

[Auntie Marcia]

aw...do we have to?
Please, can't we stay in Mui Ne another day??

[erin]

you are my heroes!
Love the photos!