Mui Ne

---

Mui Ne. Kitesurfing capital of SE Asia. the pro kite surf world tour holds a stage here each season, and as soon as you step off the bus you can see why. its windy! consistent wind, no gusts, just wind blowing steadily. It drops off at night time, so its pleasant. pretty cool. Once you walk across the road from our cheap hotel, go through a flash resort and hit the beach, the sky is filled with kites! its pretty impressive, im talking 50 kite surfers blasting around and learners on the beach practising the basics. not sure how they dont get tangled up but we watched them for a few hours and didnt see any crashes. i went for a swim, pretty sweet waves i couldve managed a few good rides on a longboard but it was pretty messy, so just bodysurfed instead. i was super jealous of the kite surfers. its something ive always wanted to try and always assumed that i would pick up very easily. however, at $100 US for a half day lesson, just couldnt afford it. We saw this black dude with huge dreads go out with his kite board and bust a backflip off the first wave - later we saw him come back into the beach, did a massive jump on the shoreline, took his board off mid air and hit the sand running. serious pro. I plan to come back here one day for a month with a pile of cash, buy a kite and go kite surfing everyday.

Mui Ne is a 10km strip of beach, with one long road. everything is very very spread out. so on our second day we hired another motorbike, for about $11 NZ. The freedom of cruising is awesome. we just pulled up into cafes and shops as we wanted, feel like iced coffee-sweet. need a new book-sweet. efficient. (iced coffees are mean by the way, anyone coming to vietnam should drink them instead of normal coffee). We drove our bike out to a deserted spot where there was a weird restaurant thing, had a beer and a swim and a sunbathe. hard life. there are also these red sand dunes that we visited and met a young girl who was desperate to sell us these mats to go sliding on. not keen.

For dinner that night we went to a seafood barbecue place. For around $11 again snappy the 900g snapper went from being very alive, to very barbecued. and tasty! After our meal there was some commotion over at one of the russian tables. a vietnamese waiter was poking a bag on the ground with a stick- and then he pounced on it with his thumb and forefinger! these guys had ordered snake! waiter pulled it out of the bag and held it up and manouvered it into position over a glass of vodka. one of the russians had the honour of cutting off the head with a pair of scissors. the head plopped down onto a plate - blood dripped into to vodka - everybody was cheering - gem felt sick - the russians where massaging the snakes still moving body to try and get more blood into the vodka - gem grabs my arm and points to the head on the plate - its still alive! sitting there like a dead snakes head and then hisssss!! baring its teeth and poking out its tongue!! hisssss!! back to looking like a dead snakes head while the waiters poke poke poke it back into action for another hissssssss!!! NEXT. Plate with a large peanut on it does the rounds. this peanut is the snakes still beating heart! pumping away on the plate - gems ready to puke - but the ruthless russian woman digs in with a knife and fork, half for her, half for the guy who had the honour of cutting off the snakes head - chased down with a glass of the blood vodka mix.

- this was also the one night we didnt take the camera out to dinner. it was charging. Next time i think i'll have to order snake!

---

Comments

[Anita]

Wow guys! Looks like youre having such a cool time! Youre gonna have some great stories when you get home! Love you lots, Anita :)

[anonymous]

next blog entry better contain the story of how YOU ate a snake's heart