Mui Ne (9-12 January)

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We took a bus from Ho Chi Minh via Phan Thiet to the beachside resort town of Mui Ne on the southeast coast of Vietnam. This part of the coast is orientated such that it is sheltered from the northeasterly winter monsoon and we experienced fine and sunny conditions during our stay. We had booked ahead while in Ho Chi Minh and stayed at Canary Beach Resort, the most luxurious place we stayed at while in Vietnam, with a buffet breakfast included in the price. The bus trip took about 5 hours. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the white sandy beach or by the pool. For dinner we walked down the road to a local café and had barbecued prawns and fish with salad.

They reckon about 1 in 4 tourists will catch a tummy bug during a stay in Vietnam. With the 4 of us on the trip, it turned out that Mark was the unlucky statistic, which was a bit surprising as Mark generally has the best 'constitution' in the family. Alex, Annelies and Thomas enjoyed the buffet breakfast, lunch by the pool and a hotpot dinner at the resort restaurant while Mark spent most of the day lounging in bed or by the pool and had nothing to eat or drink but plenty of water. Annelies and Thomas spent a lot of the day on the beach making and playing with 'sand-balls'.

The next day was also very relaxing with Mark feeling a bit better. Annelies and Thomas were back on the sandy beach, although later we all walked up to the nearby Fairy Springs, which involved walking through a muddy, ankle-deep stream set amongst sand dunes with interesting rock formations up to a small clear waterfall.

We had planned to just stay in Mui Ne for 3 nights, but due to Mark's belly ache and the nice relaxing spot, we decided to stay another day. On this next day we took a tour up to the famous red and white sand dunes. Our tour took us past a coastal fishing village that must have had at least a hundred boats moored in the harbour. It also included a short stop at a dry riverbed, where we (or at least Mark) were 'privileged' to view a photo shoot of a scantily clad Russian model posing against the red banks of the river. It wasn't the sort of thing you expect to see in Vietnam, although apparently the southeast coast of Vietnam is very popular with Russian holiday makers. We all had a great but exhausting time sand 'sledding' on the steep white sand dunes. Later we visited the red dunes and were glad we chose to sled on the white dunes as they seemed steeper.

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Photos

Fairy Springs
Thomas & Annelies enjoying the dunes

White Sands
Annelies sledding

White Sands
Mark sledding

White Sand Dunes
It was hard work getting back to the top

Canary sign
Don't forget to leave your offensive smells at reception!