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I've come to the conclusion that Vietnam is an odd country. It's very westernized since the Vietnam War, but Thailand is still considered to be more Western and richer. However despite it seeming the cheapest country so far, we actually had a POWER SHOWER in Saigon (never underestimate or take for granted this technological genius), toilets you can flush the toilet paper down (something that took a surprisingly long time to get back in the habit of) and far superior transport than that of Thailand. We got on our bus for the five hour journey to Mui Ne at 7am to find it was a sleeper bus. But a sleeper bus of an entirely different calibre to what we had seen before: individual reclining leather beds - amazing. I do tend to think the cheap price for such a great bus is somewhat balanced out by the horrendous driving of the Vietnamese though.
Steve, a friend who works at Spicy Thai hostel in Chiang Mai where we all met, flew out to meet us for the Vietnam leg of our journey and so was joining us from here on in. He's Glaswegian, so this is also where the deciphering of his accent and colloqualisms starts. 'Eh' = potentially the most versatile word in the world.
Mui Ne is a town on the coast of Vietnam, in an area that tends to be pretty windy most of the time, and is therefore where the kite surfing population congregates. Beyond happy to finally be at a beach where it is not only not raining, but there isn't a cloud in the sky, we celebrate with a few £1 mojitos. Whilst debating over whether our friend Matt would have moved on up the coast or not yet (I'm convinced he will have done) - Steve comes back from the bar with a few more drinks and Matt in tow. Ridiculously happy to see our friend again after only two days apart, we laugh over his tales of asking a lone female backpacker if she wanted to share a room to save money without realising there's just one bed in the room. She looked at him in horror and vehemently said 'no'.
The next day Matt and I braved the tall waves of Mui Ne - seriously some of the best waves I've ever had the joy of frolicking in. They tumbled you about constantly they were so strong, and after about 15 minutes of playing you felt like you'd done a workout and had to rest. It wasn't until that evening that we found out about the tsunami in Japan, and then we figured that's why the waves were so big that day. Ah...
We hired a jeep to take us to the sand dunes nearby, stopping at a fishing village on the way. Some small children selling odd bits and bobs kept us entertained, the youngest at five years old impressing us by being able to count to ten in English. At the dunes we used the quad bike Steve had hired to get the top, from where you can sand board down. It was a striking place and proved just how diverse the landscape of Vietnam is. But you really don't know the meaning of having sand in every crevice until you've spent the afternoon on a sand dune with winds whipping around you constantly. Not the most comfortable of experiences, which led to us all taking prolonged showers. Hot showers too...becoming somewhat of a given in Vietnam - what a luxury.
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