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Published: December 12th 2007
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Early morning dip
What better way to wake up? We had pre-booked accommodation in Mui Ne at the Sinh Café Hotel. It was a bit above our budget, but we were not sure how we would find accommodation when our bus arrived at 1am. We shouldn’t have bothered, because even at this early hour of the morning, our arriving bus was met by a few touts keen to take us to cheap hotels, and even to sell us tours for the morning. We ignored them and were shown by the night-duty receptionist to our room. Since there was obviously no-one else going to be checking in for the night, I managed to convince him to upgrade us to a beach side bungalow for the same price.
We pretty quickly dropped back off to sleep, and a few hours later woke up to the sound of gentle waves just outside our window. We went outside to see the Mui Ne beach for the first time in daylight and realised that we really were
on the beach. A mall patch of sand with a couple of deck chairs was all that separated us from a local fisherman pulling his circular paddle boat up onto the sand. The sea was glassy and
flat, with small waves pouncing onto the long sandy coast.
Cath couldn’t resist the temptation of an early morning swim, and although she insisted that the water was great, I had began to focus on the buffet breakfast tokens that they had given us. The sea would be ready and waiting for me as soon as I had some coffee in me.
The breakfast did not disappoint, and we had really began to appreciate the Vietnamese coffee that is served: A metal cup with tiny holes in the base is place on top of the coffee cup. A generous amount of ground coffee is loaded into the metal cup, and then water is poured on top and allowed to filter through. What you end up with is very strong, very fresh coffee. To top is all off, they don’t add fresh milk, but rather a good layer of condensed milk. This sweet espresso is also known as a “Saigon Kick-start”. A couple of those and you’re good to face the day!
One night in a fancy resort was plenty, so after breakfast we went for a walk along the beachfront, stopping to take a look at
every place with cheap bungalows. We narrowed it down to a few places that came highly recommended, and headed back to collect our bags. As we were trying to decide between the final few, we asked in at a much nicer looking place, and hit the jackpot! They had a nice bamboo bungalow for us. No hot water but it’s so hot in Mui Ne that you don’t need it. The place was also much nicer than the others because it had a swimming pool, and a great stretch of beach with shaded deck chairs.
After dropping off our bags, we headed out to the kitesurfing schools. I had been chatting to some of the instructors about buying some of their demo gear to replace my VERY old kites that I left in SA. I met up with Armando at Jibes, who promptly started to pack out a variety of kites for me to try. The wind never picked up enough for us to try them out, but we did do all the setup so that they would be ready as soon as the wind arrived.
After lazing around on the beach reading books, we headed back to
our bungalow, stopping on the way to arrange a tour for tomorrow morning to some of the nearby sights. As it got dark it started to rain, and then storm with massive thunderbolts. It was quite exciting to be at the beach with the sound of the rain beating down. We took our books and moved to the covered restaurant on next to the beach.
We moved from the Sinh Cafe Mui Ne to a place called further up the beach. It is much better situated and has some of the best cheapish bungallows on the beachfront. Check out our review on
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Anne/Mom
non-member comment
details wanted!
tell us more about the new kite ...