Mui Ne

Wahoo our first beach stop so far!!! And there was plenty of sun, plenty of sand and Lee's red chest out all over the place. Our bus from Saigon was great - it turned out to be a sleeper bus so we could lie down and have a kip which was good. We were sat next to a couple from Alaska and got chatting ... I have to be nice now as we have been meeting them all the way up the Vietnamese coast and they have this blog address!!!

On the jounrey I topped up on my new obsession; pineapple! They sell it everywhere and it is so nice. Although I'm also craving Oreo's and anything packed with sugar which is counteracting my initial healthy intake of all this fruit! oh well.

We got to Mui Ne and it is paradise. Perfect white sand and rolling waves and really peacfeul. The first place we went in to enquire about a room was a bit expensive so Lee set out to check some other places out whilst I sat with the bags. He came back with 2 motobikes and a room booked further up the strip called Hoang Kim Golden; the room was really clean and bright but the staff were miserable and it didn't back onto the beach like most of the other places further down the strip. We were pleased though and jumped straight into our swimwear and headed for the pool - it was freezing but the luxury of this place after hitting the dusty roads in Cambodia was a welcome change. We were so giddy I think we may have distracted the peacefullness of the place but we didn't care; we were like two naughty children splashing about and Lee giggling as he made 'bubbles'!!

We wandered out for dinner to a place recommended in the Lonely Planet but it looked really grotty (even by our ever changing hygiene standards) so we ended up going to a place called 'The Watering Hole' that looked beautiful.... beautiful it was not! They served instant noodles and my meal tasted exactly the same as Lee's despite mine being Pork and Lee's being Chicken! When a rat then ran along the wall we scarped shouting very loudly to anyone looking like they might wander in that it was the worst place we had eaten so far in the whole of South East Asia!

Back to our room with all intentions of going back out to a club/bar called 'Pogo' but we woke up about 4 hours later fully clothed with the telly blaring! The last 17 days must have been more tiring than we realised!

Mui Ne Continued

Lee had the clever idea this morning of walking onto the beach from our guesthouse (by which I mean down a steep flight of stairs to a tiny strip of sand where the waves crash against a 8 foot high wall!) and down to the main beach. I stupidly agreed and withiin seconds I was abosultely soaked with sand and pebbles everywhere. We were running out of 'beach' as the water got nearer and nearer the wall so we had to cross onto the main road and continue to the main strip from there.

The beach was beautiful and so nice to just sit and relax without worrying about everything going on around us. Lee enjoyed splashing about in the waves (yes Pam, yes Chris, pictures off Lee's bare chest will be coming soon!) but I was a bit wimpy about the whole sea thing and just let my feet get wet... even this was making me sea sick I swear!

We headed back and finally made it to Pogo for a drink; a really cool bar with hammocks and swing chairs dangling from the ceiling, all open and right next to the sea. We decided to go all out for a change and got a little dressed up (well, with what we have packed this wasn't exactly fancy!) and headed out for a nice meal in our poshest restaurant so far. All the tables were candlelit and right next to the sea, some a little too close as a few tables found out as the waves crashed over but it was a really nice atmosphere with nice staff and so we made it our Valentines meal (our real Valentines saw my lips turning purple in Phnom Penh from over spicy chicken just after we had been to the Killings Fields!)

We literally got to choose our food before it got put on the barbeque, Lee's was as fresh as fresh can be as he saw his shrimps swimming in the tank one minute, on the barbeque the next and on his plate! I had a gorgeous beef steak that could have given Gaucho Grill a run for it's money although with the blunt knife they gave me anyone watching would think it was the toughest piece of meat in Vietnam, but for $2.5 with all the trimmings I wasn't complaining!

The next day we headed to the main beach and on the way found our new love... PACSALS BAKERY! It did the nicest French pastries and so we loaded up and feasted on them as we walked to the beach. On our way down, a moto pulled over and at first we thought it was the usual local drivers touting for business but this guy had a passenger on the back and literally just stopped to tell Lee how handsome he was!!!! Another one to add to Lee's hareem, a gay moto driver!

I plucked up the courage to go into the sea with Lee and loved it! We both kept getting knocked over by the waves as Lee dragged me out further. He kept jumping the waves and looked quite surfery whereas I just got dragged forward by the force and wallopped on the sand with my builders bum out, hair all around my face, coughing and spluttering.. a glamourous vision I know but what can I say.

We headed back to our place for lunch as we had booked a tour of the nearby sandunes for $5 each at 2.30pm. A coach full of us headed out of Mui Ne and through the little fishing villages and countryside nearby. It was so peaceful and again we got to see the real local life briefly as we passed through. Neither of us really knew what to expect from the sandunes but when they came into view we couldn't believe our eyes. It was literally a desert rising up from completely normal surroundings. A vast expanse of bright yellow sand, strangly surrounded by trees and a lake. We parked up and got the chance to walk up to them, me and Lee thought we might as well walk right onto them. We were the first up there and absolutely no-one was around us - it was eerie actually and nothing I write will be able to do it justice, nor can the pictures.

It was not a good idea however to wear shorts and a strappy top; as we got further into the dunes the wind whipped up and shot sand particles everywhere which hurt like hell on bare skin! Lee in his loing pants and T-shirt thought it was hilarious of course and ran up to the highest dune, leaving me to brace the wind and take pictures. I couldn't go, the sand wipping me at quite a low level was painful enough so on the highest peak it was even worse and Lee said he couldn't have stayed up there much longer because it was beginning to bite him too.

From here we went to the red sandunes, exactly the same thing but with bright red sand. From here we watched the sun set before visiting a local fishing village as they got ready for night fishing.

We went to a tiny little place opposite our guesthouse for dinner; a family run eatery with plastic tables and chairs and great food! Our travels so far have certainly taught us that aesthetics mean absolutely nothing as the food here was fresh, tasty and cheap with a little boy serving us with a big smile.

the usual drinks in pogo and a few games of pool before going to bed ready to move on again tomorrow.