Mopeds, Tiger Prawns, Sandunes and Saigon Green
Trip Start
Jul 10, 2008
1
18
20
Trip End
Jul 10, 2011
Mui Ne,
Vietnam
Thursday, December 25, 2008
After a while longer we stopped at a 'service station'. Just in time, as I was full to bursting. Well I managed to pick the urinal that had a leaky pipe so after what seemed forever I was stood there in a giant pool of my own pee! Back into the main building and I just kept getting plied with taster snacks and drinks - the poor ladies were hoping I'd buy something. The red wine they are giving me would have been better sold as a vinegar product! The crispy peanut bar wasn't too bad though!
Here we and another couple had to switch buses while our bus continued to Nha Trang. It was good timing really and the southbound bus arrived 2 minutes after our north bound one. We were placed on a sleeper bus. This bus had 3 rows of bunk beds. Probably 35 beds in all
Erica in Fairy Stream
. We dropped down to the coast and what was a lovely windswept coastline. We arrived in Mui Ne to rain. Pandemonium broke loose when we arrived with hawks everywhere and no good explanations from the bus drivers and people leaving the bus, Mui Ne is a long town though and we found out eventually that the bus would make a stop further up the road, closer to where we would stay - no need to jump on a motorbike to take us there. It was Christmas Eve and we wondered from hotel to hotel in the rain to be told no room at the inn. The chance of us getting beachfront place wasn't going to happen unless we shed out the big bucks! We ended up at Hoang Vu in a small tiny box room - not too happy we would spend our Christmas in a shoebox. It turned out to be satisfactory for our needs and we really didn't spend too much time outside sleep time there.
We had a walk up the beach - we discovered most of the beachfront property was really big resort hotels and they just seemed to go on forever. This place was starting to remind me of a quieter Spanish resort that the Brits would flood to for their 2 weeks of jollies every summer. The difference here was it wasn't shared with the Germans, this place had signs in Russian everywhere. I guess in the grand scheme of things for some people in Russian this would be one of the closest beaches!
It didn't take us long to find what would become our local boozer. Lam Toms I think it was called and it had the cheapest beer and seafood in town all with a sea view
Erica Sandboarding
. We sat next to some Russians who were just starting to warm up with 10 empties of Saigon Green in front of them. It was 4pm after all on Christmas Eve. We tried to match them but gave up after two.We stayed in our hotel restaurant for dinner that night, it turned out to be one of the most popular in the area. After a wander around what attracted us to our place were the big bowls of seafood on ice up front, with lobster, barramundi, red snapper and 1/2 lb tiger prawns, where you could chose your own and get them BBQ'd right there in front of you. The two for the price of one Blue Lagoon cocktails was the icing on the cake. We both got the tasty tiger prawns stuffed with garlic butter. It was Christmas Eve so we treated ourselves to banana fritters with hot melted chocolate for desert!
We seemed to have a lot of mozzies in our room that night. Poor Erica attract them and seemed to spend most of the night sat on the end of the bed with a new gadget I bought her. It gives a small electric shock that is meant to stop the itching and swelling. These late night antics were a little unfortunate as we were up at 4:45am next day - the plan was to see Christmas Day morning sunrise from some of the big sand dunes in the area. Unfortunately our driver who was the strangest of character and had a whole manner of nervous repetitive movements neglected to fill the jeep up with petrol and a ways along the beach road we came to a jerking stop. He ran down the road (it was still dark) knocked on someone door and got us a litre of juice to get us to the gas station in town
Erica at white sanddunes
. Missing sunrise wasn't a big deal as the horizon was full with clouds. There was however a lady in a wedding dress and a bunch of photographers on one sand dune - not sure if it was her big day or if it was for some commercial. The dunes were pretty empty apart from one tour bus that luckily all stayed on the top of one sand dune by themselves. We got to have a nice wander without the crowds. These sand dunes were known as the white sand dunes.We had been sold some plastic sheets to 'board' down the dunes on. We got some movement, but the sand was pretty wet with the rains and we didn't move as quickly as we would have liked! Oh well they had cost us a dollar.
Back at the car our driver had his head under the bonnet. A quick top up of the radiator that was leaking like a sieve and we were off again. We stopped at a red sand canyon that had been carved by the floods, it was nice, but Vietnam has a huge litter problem, so on our walk that is what really caught our eye. We did see a good-looking lizard, a Hoopoe and some beautiful kingfishers down the canyon also, so that was nice. There is a larger more beautiful canyon we passed, but due to erosion that has been closed for a good few years.
The red sand dunes were next - this was Muppet heaven and by the time we got there they were packed. They were wet, full of people, footprints, tyre prints and certainly weren't the red windswept sand dunes you think about when you think about the Namib Desert
Fishing Village
. Unless you like flowing people footprints stay away from this place!We were getting behind schedule - something to do with running out of petrol! 5 minutes was all we were allowed at the fishing village. Probably a good thing as I think Erica had one too many Blue Lagoons the night before and that fishy smell wasn't sitting too well on her stomach. It's an interesting place though with what looks like hundreds of fishing boats!
Our final stop was Fairy Stream - this was a nice 40-minute walk up through the centre of a cool stream fed by a spring, no turds in this one! Red sand canyons surrounded the walk again. Very pleasant. We did have some young kids offering to be our guides, but unless you have problems following a stream bed you should be safe to do this one alone.
It was 10:30 by the time we got back for a feed and went to Mellows for a nice coffee and eggs. We were so hungry we headed straight back to Lam Toms on the beachfront for lunch and some liquid refreshments on the back of breakfast. We sat at the same table; the Russians arrived a few minutes later and started on their Saigon Greens again. We sat on the beach, did some swimming and watched all the kite surfers and windsurfers during the afternoon. Mui Ne usually gets a decent wind and it's a Mecca for these surfers.
We took a scooter the next day. As soon as we paid our money the guy mentioned how a bunch of tourist had been arrested the previous week, jailed and bribed by the cops and asked us which way we were going
Hotel Wrecker
. Once we told him he said that's ok no cops that way at the moment! If you decide to go the other way come back and check with me first! Let's just hope the cops didn't turn up in our direction later that day! We were heading to see the Po Shanu Cham Towers close to the town of Phan Thiet just west of Mui Ne. We stopped for petrol - the device was a barrel of petrol, a little pump and a container that would hold up to 4 litres. We asked for 2 litres, they filled the container using the hand pump to the two-litre level, then put the pipe into your tank and emptied the container. It seemed to do the job for the land of the motor scooter! The coastline was quite beautiful just north of town and we stopped to check out the beach before our 5km trip to the towers. When we got there some young kid led us to the towers before an older man turned up demanding money and that we paid for a ticket, he yelled at the little kid and scowled at us and as the towers weren't too interesting we decided to skip the entrance fee and head into the town proper. This one was another larger fishing town; again the harbour was jam rammered with boats. We had a quick look, went to the market, bought some tangerines after trying three stores to see who gave us the best price. After that we headed back to find a nice rock to sit on the nice bit of coastline just west of Mui Ne and eat our tangerines. Erica learn the joys of moped riding and burn her leg on the exhaust - she was able to join the rest of the people walking around town with a bandage on the inside of their right calf!Back at Lam Toms that afternoon, the Russians were there again making the most of the cheap beer. There were the usual array of sellers, one who Erica was convinced was a ladyboy wanting to give us massages and very irate when we said no, shell sellers, we'd see them digging for the shells in the sand the next morning! My favourite seller though was the guy who brought his moped on the beach and was selling kites. He seemed like he was doing a roaring trade! That night we decided to have our last dinner back at Hoang Vu. Back in the room Erica closed the door and the whole centre piece that held a mirror in place fell out and shattered everywhere. Seven years bad luck for her! It obviously wasn't our fault but the guy who ran the hotel/restaurant was young and a bit of a jerk, we told him next morning as we were leaving but he was surprisingly OK about it.
