Mui Ne

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David here...

Our next stop in Vietnam after the luxury of Saigon was Mui Ne. A beach resort on the central coast of Vietnam on the South China Sea. We arrived by bus and stopped off at what looked like a central point. We were quite lucky really as Mui Ne is basically one long road that stretches along the coast for 10km and we jumped off pretty much in the middle, in amongst the bulk of guesthouses and restaurants. We decided after a brief look around that we would spend a little more somewhere and get a beach side apartment. We ended up with a lovely little room basically on the beach for the princely sum of £14 a night. The first thing we did was get into our swimming gear and hit the beach. After a couple of hours lazing and bobbing in the waves we hit the town and decided to go to the Hoa Vien Czech brewery at the far end of town, expecting brilliant beer and a brauhouse style meal. The reality was a little less than we anticipated, which was a disappointment. It wasn't that the food was bad or the service was not up to scratch. It was that the service was too fussy and the food came out in a completely random order. For example, the first thing to come out was the baked cheese followed by Suzanne's main dish of grilled pork. After that it was my side dish of baked Aubergine and then came Suzanne's jacket potatoes. This was over the space of at least 10 minutes. Finally, my beef arrived about 20 minutes after my side dish. We have found the food orders to be a little random at times in Asia (no such thing in most places as a 'starter') but this was just a bit much, especially in a western style brewery. As mentioned the service was also a bit fussy. We were handed menus and a waitress then tried to tell Suzanne what to have. I'm sure she was only trying to help, but we can make up our own minds. They then brought out the plates, which a few minutes later the same waitress who 'assisted' with the menu just had to push right under our noses. For us, this kind of service was just to much. You can go too far in trying to ensure a tip. To top this off, the beer was not great either, which was the main reason for going. The pilsner was just too bitter, though the dark beer was nice, but no where near as good as the nectar I had in the Lion brauhouse in Saigon. The meal was also very expensive for what you got, coming to about £20 in the end. After the meal we decided to grab some beer from our guesthouse and sit on our balcony, listening to the sound of the waves lapping against the beach.

The next day was spent mainly reading on the beach and bobbing in the sea, as there is not much else to do in Mui Ne really. Some of the waves were quite big, which was great fun, though you do have to watch out for the large amount of kite and wind surfers in the area as this is the kite surfing capital of the world after all, though it seemed more dangerous for the people on the beach who had to put up with the beginners learning how to fly the kites before even getting into the sea as they are harder to control than they look. We ate at the Lam Tong restaurant which served your typical Vietnamese cuisine as well as fresh seafood, including baby sharks that you could pick out yourself from the tanks that lined the path as you walked in. Needless to say, we stuck to Chicken, Beef and Pork dishes, which were very nice and a fraction of the cost of the previous nights meal. It really does make a difference on the budget eating at more local traditional places. We ended the night with a bottle of local red wine from Dalat (£2 from the guesthouse) on our balcony and then 2 bottles of Saigon beer each (30p each) sitting on a lounger next to the sea. It was very romantic sitting by the South China sea at night with the waves splashing up to the beach. It is still a bit of a shock to us both to and we do keep looking at each other and saying something along the lines of 'We're in Vietnam' or 'That's the South China sea'. I don't think it is ever truly going to hit us that we are actually on a trip of this magnitude. We only stayed in Mui Ne for 2 nights before moving onto our next stop, Dalat, though we could have easily stayed for another night here. The sun, sea and Saigon beer was very nice and Mui Ne is a lovely little town.

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