4 Islands, a Floating Bar, Ladyboys and a Shisha

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We boarded our 8am bus booked last minute lastnight to Mui Ne. Mui Ne is North up the coast from Ho Chi Minh and is famous for their windsurfing and sand dunes. It wasn’t until we stepped onto the bus and were asked to remove our shoes that we realised we had booked a sleeper bus. We were slightly excited as we had wanted to experience one. Our excitement levels were soon dampened when we realised we had been shafted to the back, sharing a very cosy seat with 3 other strangers, very much hung-over from their previous night out.

With our hotel address now very skilfully programmed into our phones we managed to get off the bus within walking distance to our hotel. Checking in to our $21/night room, we were upgraded to the Premier Deluxe room. Complete with roof top pool and panoramic views over the beach and golf course. Winning.

We were surprised at just how quiet Mui Ne was as a tourist destination. Much too quiet for us and a little overwhelming when the street signage, restaurant menus and people trying to flog their rental bikes to us were all Russian. We ended up hiring a bike for the day to try and source out the hub of Mui Ne.

Mark had received a few Facebook messages from Dennis toying with us that he & Nicole were at our rooftop pool. We knew this was impossible as they were booked to stay 2 hours south of us. After half an hour of to-ing and fro-ing Mark couldn’t resist and had to check out the pool. As soon as I heard the squeal I knew it was true. This marked another night of dinner and rooftop drinks.

We all booked a tour of the Red & White Sand Dunes with the hope that we could get a repeat of our CoCo tour in Battambang, Cambodia. We were dropped by Jeep around 500m from the White Sand Dunes. We were told we could rent a sheet of plastic if we wanted to attempt to slide down the dunes. We agreed to pay the $2.50/sheet and set off towards the dunes. The wind was relentless and every granule of sand was like a pin prick. We all took turns on the plastic sheets at trying to let gravity take us in a downward motion to the bottom of the dunes. Much harder than using an esky lid or sheet of cardboard when we were kids.

The four of us decided to travel together North to our next beach destination in Nha Trang. Our bus arrived, and we were once again bombarded by taxi drivers, so in principal we decided to scout out our hotel by foot. We walked along the beachfront and found our hotel nestled amongst the restaurants and bars. Departing eachother for our separate hotels there was a lot of hype over the activities the next few days had to bring.

The four of us booked a boat tour that covered 4 islands complete with snorkelling and lunch. Our first island required a 50 cent per person stopping fee + $1.00 each to hire a mask & snorkel. The water was cool and fresh and there was not much in the way of fish or coral to see. The four of us found some steps to sit on to wait for the time to pass until it was time to re-board the boat again. It seems that this was the only thing on the island that did not cost money to use. On to our next stop to meet up with two other boats for some lunch. This is where our tour took a massive turn. The drum kit and electric guitar were broken out, there was table dancing, a floating bar, rice wine shots, a dancing ladyboy and jumping from the roof of our boat. HECTIC!!

The four of us organised to meet for dinner, strawberry & mint shisha and vodka buckets. The next few details can’t really be accounted for, but there was a pool competition, a dance-off and a 1:30am cheese & bacon burger. The following day was very uneventful.

We decided to experience the Mud & Mineral Baths. We were told to shower off, then they proceeded to fill our 2-person bath with mud – pleasant, warm and a little bit dirty.

A few days earlier I bought a hair colour and today was quiet enough to use it. Normally medium brown in colour, nowhere on the box did it say PERMANENT BLACK. So I proceeded to douse my hair in a very permanent and very black hair colour. My face, ears, neck & shoulders also received their fair share of colour. I ended up with toothpaste in my ears and a graze on my forehead in a bid to remove the colour. The grunt of the colour came off, but as I read my journal entry from 3 days later there was still colour on my face.

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Comments

[mum and dad]

awsome
what a cool trip you guys are having something you wont forget for a long time and either will we as we watch your journey take care love mum and dad xox

[markandbreeunleashed]

Hi Guys, Thanks for following. Sorry it has taken us so long to get to this point. We are now on a mission to get this done, so hopefully soon you will be following where we are in present time. xx