Days 62-65 Mui Ne and Dalat

Trip Start Oct 08, 2005
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Trip End Oct 06, 2006


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Sunday, December 11, 2005

Mui Ne is a small town about 4 hours drive north of Saigon, right on the coast. There's not a lot here apart from the beach, but it meant that I had a relaxing couple of days not doing a whole lot. On the bus on the way up here I met a lad that I had talked to briefly on the day trip to Kanchanaburi, and after a day of lying on the beach we decided to hire a motorbike together and head out to the sand dunes for which this area is famous. We left at 4.30am hoping to catch the sunrise over the dunes, but it was far too cloudy to see the sun unfortunately. However, the dunes are still very impressive - there are 2 main areas: the red dunes and the white dunes - both of which seem to rise out of the most unexpected terrain, as around there is rock, grass, wetlands and a lake, then these massive dunes. Local kids offer rides down the dunes on a strip of plastic for as much as you want to pay (as long as its over a dollar, it seemed...) but I declined, as I felt a broken limb was a sure thing. It was a pretty good place to spend a couple of days, but no more than that, especially as the weather wasn't that brilliant towards the end of the second day 01 Fishermen on Mui Ne beach
01 Fishermen on Mui Ne beach
 .

The two days I spent in Dalat have been amongst my favourite so far, I had such a lot of fun. Roger and I met two Australian girls on the bus - Fiona and Vanessa - and to save money we all ended up sharing a room in a hotel run by a slightly mad young Vietnamese guy called Rot. (The hotel was called The Pink House, highly recommended) He invited us to his sister's house the first evening for a cooking lesson - we actually spent very little time on the cooking (we made spring rolls and chicken curry) but a long time on learning about Vietnamese culture, especially their swear words and drinking games, using countless bottles of locally produced strawberry wine. Of course the foreigners lost so it was hangovers all round the next day. However they were quickly blown away, cos Rot had organised for us to go out on his friends' motorbikes on a full tour of the sights around Dalat. It was a fantastic day - Dalat is set high up in the mountains and the scenery surrounding it is beautiful. We went to waterfalls, local villages, silk farms, coffee plantations, saw local weddings (its wedding season in Vietnam, everywhere you look there is a wedding happening), loads of interesting stuff. Quite cold though, and a bit wet.

That Saturday was the first day of the Dalat Flower Festival, a bi-annual event that celebrates, erm, flowers I guess! The town was completely rammed full of local people, it was impossible to move through the crowds and got quite scary at times as everyone was pushing, old women were falling in the street and almost being trampled, it was insane. No security or police in sight. Until we tried to climb a fence into the market so we could escape the crowds to get food and then we saw plenty! Play the stupid foreigner, that was the ploy 02 Me, Mui Ne Beach
02 Me, Mui Ne Beach
 . Anyway, we managed to get some wine coolers, and sat on the river bank watching the parade (very impressive) and the fireworks (very poor!), then once drunk enough we went off to attempt karaoke. Now, I've never done karaoke before, so was determined to humiliate myself in public at least once, but was slightly disappointed to find out it was only the 5 of us who I would be singing to. Still, for those of you who have heard my voice you will know thats probably best, don't want to make too many ears bleed. (In the absence of any Westlife on the playlist I sang that old karaoke classic "I will Survive", ably assisted by Fi and Vanessa. Rot said I had a good voice - poor deluded, obviously deaf boy.) Finally got to bed at 2am, quite drunk, knowing we had a bus to Nha Trang leaving at 6am. Not sensible.
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