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Published: January 19th 2010
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Early morning at Nha Trang beach Sometimes, travel can be taxing. Unlike a regular holiday, much of the time is taken up with planning journeys, keeping a tab on budgets and even being ill. And constant sightseeing can get tiresome... the need for unending alertness and activity, trying always to be interested in whatever you're seeing and, for me at least, trying to capture as much as possible on the camera. Its easy to reach travel fatigue, where you just can't digest any more information or new sights. So every once in a while, I need a break from travelling... a vacation from my vacation, so to speak. I decided to take this break at the beach, having had a successful day at Hoi An. My destination - Nha Trang.
I've always been a fan of quieter beaches, and I knew that Nha Trang was a big place and therefore likely to be busy, so my plan was just to pause there on my way to the much smaller resort of Mui Ne. Which is what I did. I was pleasantly surprised by Nha Trang though. Arriving by bus at 6am, I was ready for a stroll along the seafront by 7, so I caught the
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Big Buddha morning stretches and games of badminton, which Vietnamese of all ages were playing all the way along the beach. The beach itself is big but not that great to walk on, and the islands lying just offshore provide a picturesque marker on the horizon. I visited Nha Trang's only bona fide tourist attraction, a pagoda with a big Buddha statue (they're all the rage in Asia... Nha Trang had one sitting down and another reclining!), but in the heat of the day it was too opposed to my desire to relax, so I downed the camera and packed myself off for a few hours in the shade of a coconut palm. The next morning, after a great dinner (Nha Trang has some good eateries), I took the bus to Mui Ne.
Anyone who knows me knows how generally relaxed I am, so it doesn't take me long to unwind. Within 30 minutes of checking in to my resort at Mui Ne (a room with a hammock outside, a swimming pool and direct beach access for $12 a night) I was on a sun lounger getting stuck in to Salman Rushdie's epic Midnight's Children. I'd found exactly what I wanted
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Sun, sand, sea and palm trees in Mui Ne. My part of the 11km curve of sand was quiet and sparsely populated with resorts. It was also next to the local fishermen's houses, which afforded great opportunities for watching the villagers struggle past in their round boats (which look great but are stupidly difficult to move through the water), or catch fish and mussels from the shore using rods or small nets. Sadly, much of Mui Ne's beachfront is now occupied by upscale resorts, and more are on the way. Give it a few years and this place will be a mini Nha Trang, which will be a pity.
So that's how I spent my time at Mui Ne. I didn't go to see the red or white sand dunes, or a nearby lake or take windsurfing lessons. I just sat, swam and walked along the beach, watching is I got gradually darker and darker. I now look vaguely Middle Eastern. So apolgies for what isn't a particularly exciting blog! Hopefully the photos explain why I didn't get up to much of note!
At the end of my stay, I was feeling refreshed and ready to get back into the action. Which was lucky,
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Fishermen at Mui Ne prepare for a trip as my next stop would be Saigon, where (unbeknownst to me at the time) I'd play blackjack with a Singaporean gold dealer and meet more Slovenians than I've ever met before...
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Donna and Neil
Donna and Neil
So true!
When travelling for a while it's definitely essential to kick back and relax at some point and do nothing. People at home laugh at us for saying we are having a 'holiday from travelling', but as you say you get burnt out and get a kind of 'boredom' with travelling. A few days of rest can perk you up and no better place to do this than Mui Ne! Happy travels!