at the beach!

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So I spent a couple of days at the beach in Mui Ne, but have no photos to prove it...

Was only there for a couple of days, and I guess I didn't find the scenery all that inspiring, but also I was just being lazy and enjoying having some beachtime to myself before my return to Australia! My first impression of the beach at Mui Ne was pretty good, it was great to go for a swim in the ocean after a couple of months of being in high temperatures in Asia and being so far away from the sea. But the next day, in the morning when the tide went out, I realised just how dirty the water actually was. I guess it makes sense with Vietnam having a population of around 80 million, mostly along the coast, and there is little in the way of water treatment before any waste water hits the ocean. So after a quick walk along the beach, it was enough to put me off going for any more serious swims.

I did have some fantastic seafood while I was in Mui Ne, and I also met a great bunch of people, so I had some great meals and some great nights out while I was there. I had some really delicious Vietnamese seafood salads, barbecued fish and grilled calamari that was all so cheap, as there are some excellent restaurants away from the beach on the side of the main road.

But unfortunately on the first night while we were eating we heard a crash down the street, and a woman working in the restaurant we were in went running off to have a look. She came back quite a bit later very shaken up. Speaking to her later that night and also the next day, it sounded like her brother, his wife and her nephew had been on a motorbike that was hit by a drunk driver and her nephew, who was only a young child, had some serious head injuries. It was so sad to hear about yet another road accident. In my last two weeks in Vietnam, serious road accidents seemed to be happening everywhere. With every bus trip I took I hoped that I wouldn't see the gory aftermath of any more accidents, but every time I did, all the way to Saigon.

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