Mui Ne Sunshine microclimate here we come!!!

Trip Start Sep 06, 2007

Trip End Sep 04, 2008

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Flag of Vietnam Mui Ne, Vietnam
Monday, October 22, 2007

After a lovely 4 hour bus journey we arrived at Mui Ne. Mui Ne has a micro climate which more or less means that when is raining cats and dogs everywhere else there is sunshine in Mui Ne. So we were tearing down the coast to get there. Anyway took ourselves off the bus a little too early and checked out some resort places outside of town and they were a little expensive so we had to get 2 scooter rides into the town. Bags the lot. I was a little nervous to say the least, Sheila is fearless when it comes to scooters! Anyway after much wobbling around the roads we finally arrived and had a bit of a look around. Sheila met an English dude who owned the place across the road and he was saying that it hardly ever rains there and if it did it would only rain for a little bit and it would be light. Well it must have been the luck of the Irish or something because as soon as we had checked ourselves into our seafront accomodation it rained like the clappers. Bad ass rain and it poured for about an hour! And of course the electricity decided to cut out as well at this point as it always does apparently at this time of the day! So we sweat it out until the skies cleared. Shortly after, we realised that we had a wasp nest embedded in our balcony as Fiona hit off the table and got stung...this accommodation was turning into Faulty Towers!!

We booked a trip to the sand dunes, it was class. We had a very good guide who was a bit nervous about having 2 Irish women with him so he took along his brother for company so the 4 of us headed off in his jeep. First we went to a fishing village, the bay had about 100 boats in it quite a sight to see as they are all the same colour! How each fisherman knows who owns what boat is a mystery. Fiona keeled over coming up the steps and cut her knee and hands... a good start as we were going to the sand dunes that evening! Fiona asked a little boy could she take his photo with his fishing boat. This was no problem as he posed for the photo. Next thing as we're walking walking away he shouts that he wants $10 for the privelige! He got 5000d and you'd swear he won the lotto. Brat!!!
First stop was Red Canyon, this was the most incredible sight. Sand formations that would remind you of stalactites and stalacmites of hardened red sand. Check out the photos for these pretty cool. Then we went off to do some 'sand sliding' as they call it on the white sand dunes. The kids there were very savvy and demanded 50000 dong each to use the plastic to slide. We got him down to 10 000 each and headed off. It was very cool, its like being in the desert. There was an american dude who nearly slid into the river off a massive dune but we were safe enough and kept to the ones facing the land! Sheila was a pro at this. It was really fast once you got going and you think you are going to get killed but it was a great laugh.
The last of the dunes was the yellow dunes. We juts went for a quick walk up there. There was a native popstar up there filming his soppy song against the backdrop of the dunes. Two little girls stuck with us and were trying to teach us some Vietnamese. They had all the money making banter, how beautiful your name was and begging you to use their sleighs!They were great fun but we had enough of sliding around the place at this stage! Gave them some money anyway but it looked like they were well used to handling the money at this early stages of their lives. They were both 9, we think and both were working full time on the dunes (see photo), she is very small but her friend told me that its normal she has a small head, she is Vietnamese afterall! She had a good way with words the 'taller' girl! both of them escorted us back to our open air jeep and we headed home contuing to work on our Tina Turner hairstyle in the wind!

Mui Ne is quiet this time of year but it is the most fabulous place. Loads of really good seafood restaurants and the beach is pretty amazing.
We headed off that afternoon to get some dinner. The people beside us had ordered snake. This was interesting. They brought the snake to the table so they could all make eye contact with their dinner and then the snake went to the toilet everywhere and thats putting it politely so they ran off with the snake and brought out 2 glasses of what looked like a shot of alcohol at the bottom, next they arrived with the snake and cut his head off there and then. They then squeezed the blood out of him into the two glasses and served them up to the two guys. I was white at this stage and they seemed to enjoy their 'snake wine'! Not too sure if they ate the snake though ahd enough of looking at that stage!