Vietnam smells of fish
Trip Start
Jul 29, 2003
1
20
31
Trip End
Dec 01, 2003
Mui Ne,
Vietnam
Wednesday, October 8, 2003
Left Saigon yesterday night on the first of our many bus rides. Decided to book an "open tour" bus which lets you get on and off at various destinations whenever you like. Its a very touristy way of travelling through Vietnam, but also very cheap (basically cos they take you to certain hotels/guest houses to get commission).
Quite a good bus ride though - there was hardly anyone on it so me and Janine each got a seat to ourselves. Arrived in Mui Ne at about 12:30am and checked into a bit of a dingy room at the Happy Cafe where they dropped us off. Not a great nights sleep as we were on the main road where cars/motorbikes/lorries were zooming past at all hours constantly beeping their horns (a trait of all drivers in asia), plus I felt like the bed tried to swallow me up as we had the softest mattress in the world. I suppose I shouldn't complain - at least it had a mattress unlike the beds in Koh Tao
Fishing boats
.Went into the cafe bit for breakfast and we both ordered fruit salad with yoghurt off the menu (although Janine asked for it without yoghurt). Five minutes later we were presented with 2 plates of fruit salad with strawberry and chocolate ice cream, covered in chocolate sauce (?!). Quite nice even if it was a bit of a weird thing to have for breakfast.
Moved to Full Moon Beach Resort today which is a little beyond our budget but we mananged to get about a $15 discount and its only for one night and the place is lovely!
In case anyone wants to feel jealous - check out this link... http://www.elephantguide.com/hotels/phanthiet/fullmoon.htm
Spent a couple of hours eating, sunbathing and paddling in the sea (I'm having such a hard time). Along the shore I found a cool huge swirly shell, some half eaten crabs and a dead fish which I waved in Janine's face but she wasn't too impressed. I then went further into the water to swim but saw what I thought was a jellyfish (it probably wasn't but I didn't want to find out) so I freaked out and ran back to shore!
Then we went to go see the sand dunes which are a few km from the beach
Full Moon beach resort, Mui Ne
. Got ourselves a couple of motorbikes (as per usual Janine managed to get the pervy driver while I got the one who spoke no English but thats the better alternative to me!) and set of down the road inhaling the fresh sea air. Actually not quite.Mui Ne is beautiful but it has a big downfall - it stinks of fish. Not surprising since theres a big fishing trade here but really, it stinks! To get a sense of what I mean, go to the supermarket and sniff a bottle of fish sauce (preferably Vietnamese, not Thai as the Vietnamese one is stronger). Every now and then you get a waft of Vietnamese coffee or manure, but mainly its just fish.
Got mobbed by kids (again another common trait in asia) who wanted us to go sliding down the sand dunes with them on the plastic slides. They were really cute but all seemed to be competing over us so we knew there was going to be money involved. I managed to take their picture without being charged (as I was in Cambodia) and then we were kind of forced into going for a ride. I managed to completely fall off my slide and roll down the hill landing on my face, much to Janine's amusement who chose the safer option of riding with one kid in front of her and one behind to cushion the fall!
Managed to get ripped off by each giving the kids $2 for 2 rides although there were about 12 of them to share it between and I tried to make them feel guilty by saying I couldn't afford to eat dinner tonight but I don't think they really cared.
Got back to the resort and thought we had got pretty good tans today - until we realised we were just covered from head to toe in orange sand...
Off to Nha Trang tomorrow for a couple more days of lazing around on beaches!
xxx
