A sunny beach, finally

Trip Start May 06, 2007
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Trip End Jul 24, 2008


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Where I stayed
Hong Di Guest House
(Mui Ne hotels)

Flag of Vietnam  , Mui Ne,
Wednesday, May 21, 2008

After my rainy beach time in Cambodia, I was very much looking forward to a beautiful, sunny beach with bright blue water.  Mui Ne did not disappoint.  All of the guest houses are set up along a 4km stretch of beach, each with their own beach area complete with chairs and hammocks.  When I checked into my guest house I was told that there were already three people going on a jeep tour to the sand dunes that afternoon and that if I joined them it would be only $6 per person.  I figured why not.  A couple of hours later two Dutch girls, an Irish girl, and I climbed into a beat-up old jeep and headed out to the dunes.  Before actually making it to the sand dunes, we stopped at Fairy Stream, a pretty, but not exactly exciting small stream of red water flowing through some small mountain-like structures.  En route to the sand dunes, our non-English speaking driver pulled over on a stretch of beach and motioned for us to take pictures of the fishermen's village there.  We obliged despite the fact that none of us were incredibly impressed by it.

When we reached the white sand dunes, we were met by a gaggle of children offering to rent us long pieces of flexible plastic with two thick string handles to use to slide down the dunes.  The other three agreed to rent them for 10,000 dong (about 70 cents), but I opted out, seeing that the dunes didn't appear to be very steep.  After the other girls each took one ride down a dune, they said I made the right choice.  We hung out at the dunes for a little while, walking around and enjoying the gorgeous weather before hopping back into the jeep and heading off for the far less beautiful and much more trash-covered yellow sand dunes.  We spent barely five minutes there before heading back into the jeep, causing our driver to put out the cigarette he had just lit.  While none of the stops on the 'tour' were all that exciting, it was still a nice way to spend the afternoon.

The next two days the most ambitious task I undertook was walking up and down the beach.  It was really beautiful and relatively empty, being that this is the low season.  I racked up many hours of hammock time, finishing off two books, while lying in a hammock parallel to the water in a couple of palm trees at the edge of my guest house just before the sand of the beach began.  It was a nice couple of days of relaxation, but after a couple of days I was itching to get moving again and made plans to head off into the mountains of the Central Highlands.
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