Blogs from Binh Thuan, South Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 5

The main attraction of the coastal town of Mui Ne is the sand dunes. White ones and red ones. We arrived here Sunday afternoon and found a great little hotel with a pool. Very welcome after a long bus journey. The hotel was right on the beach front but the beach or sea wasn't very inviting at all. Probably been to too many beautiful islands recently! We took a short walk along the one road that makes up the town to check out the bars and restaurants so we knew where to go for dinner later that night then spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool. On Monday we joined up with two American girls and hired the hotel's jeep and driver to take us to the sand dunes about 25 kms away. First ... read more

Binh Chau to Phan Thiet Now we know where all the dragonfruit are grown! We cycled along sandy barren fields and small villages built on the sand and scrub land, until, after a sugar cane juice recharge, we descended into a valley with a huge abundance of dragonfruit trees. We couldn't resist picking up 3 for 60 cents! The next use of the land was salt flats, marked out by levees with water evaporating in the sun. A relay of women with wheelbarrows shifted the salt to the roadside. We arrived in Phan Thiet as the evening was drawing in. A nice downhill for tired legs brought us to a very grey and busy city. We were ready to drop and stopped at the first Nha Nghi we found. It was quiet and strangley had a ... read more

We have been languishing on the Vietnam shore of the South China Sea for almost three weeks. To the east are the Philippines, to the south is Malaysia and China is north. The daytime temperature hovers around 30C and it cools off to about 24C at night. The sea water is silky smooth, warm and so salty that one can just lie back and float as on a big blanket. We’ll start with the food as this army marches on its stomach. The area we are in has a well developed tourist infrastructure. There are restaurants serving foods from around the world. We have enjoyed the thalis with the buttery, fresh-baked nan bread at the Indian restaurant; the classic Margherita wood-fired oven pizza from the Italian restaurant, other Mediterranean delicacies and even Australian beef burgers at ... read more

We arrived in Mui Ne in the dead of night and set out in search of our pre-booked guesthouse 'Hai Yen'. Once found we intended to have a nice early night, but our new Kiwi friends (that joined us on the bus) had other ideas and we sat up drinking and chatting to the early hours! We woke early, and feeling remarkably fresh we wandered around our new home which included a fancy pool! As the waves were good in Mui Ne our Kiwi friends said they would teach us how to surf so we hired mopeds in search of hiring boards. We quickly decided to stop for a swim in the sea to cool down before carrying on along the coast. The views were beautiful as we drove through the little sleepy beach town. We ... read more

Well, not quite deserts but vast collections of sand, which when encountered from their respective centres, give the distinct feeling of what it would be like to be stranded in the middle of an arid abyss; tiny grains of sand whipping into your eyes, nose and mouth at speeds fast enough to inflict a decent amount of pain on your skin! And then of course there’s the heat! But, I’m getting ahead of myself in this tale... A few days earlier We left Cambodia with torn feelings; sadness at saying goodbye to friends, co-workers and students who we had grown very fond of over the previous three months – but also excitement, not just with the prospect of entering a new country on our horizon after months of relative standstill, but also with Amy’s father again ... read more