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Mui Ne beach was once a diamond along a rugged Vietnamese coast line and proved too enticing to be ignored by the tourism industry. I would not say that the place has lost much beauty or charm however, as the buildings have been mercifully built in a low-rise tradition. In fact, during our stay here the streets have been pretty deserted and almost ghostly until the sun sets and night prevails; all the holiday makers merge into a sort of food purchasing throng and all the restaurants are teeming with them.
I was baffled to learn that Mui Ne is a surfing hot spot in Vietnam and the number of wind and kite surfers often obscured the horizon behind them. I have never heard of surfing in Vietnam, but it is certainly enjoyed by hundreds here. I am also told that the number of tourists now out number the locals, another sign that Mui Ne is taking off in terms of tourism.
This morning we set out on a ludicrously cheap tour to see an array of things (basically most of what Mui Ne has to offer).
Our first stop was the enormous white sand dunes which Mui Ne is famous for. We roused ourselves at a hideous 4AM to get there early enough to catch the sunset, apparently walking into a desert in pitch blackness is a common thing here, even when people on quad bikes are roaring around you.
The sunset itself was masked by a veil of annoyingly thin cloud though we all got the gist and made our way back through the talc like sand to our bus.
Our second stop was a small fishing village; this was both interesting a mildly repulsive. The interesting aspect came in the form of their boats which were completed circular, with a diameter of about one and a half meters. They came in various colours of blue, green and red and broke the waves in a bludgeoning fashion that was very inferior to boats with a pointed bow. Still, they were obviously successful fishing vessels as the beach was awash with locals stooping over piles of small fish, crabs, shrimp, eels, hermits and squid. They deftly sorted out the piles into various buckets and didn't flinch when something writhed around horribly in their hands. This almost mechanical process was swiftly completed and buckets were constantly being carried away to some unknown destination. The whole area (as you might expect) absolutely stank. A mournful amount of crab and squid carcasses filled the swash that lapped at the beach and hundreds more were strewn along the sand, the miasma offended your senses and I was grateful that our stay there was a short one.
Next, we went to the red sand dunes and enjoyed some sand sledging. This consisted of sitting on a broad sheet of malleable plastic and zipping off down the great dunes - the trudge up meant that I only had two goes. My feeble dune climbing however, was put to shame by a minute Vietnamese woman in a conical hat and ancient body. She was up and down that dune like a whippet, backwards, sidewards anyway-you-like-wards.
Shamed, we went to our final destination, Fairy Stream. I'm sorry to say that the place didn't consist of people running around in tutus throwing glitter at everyone as I'd hopped. It was in fact a sand bed stream that lead up to a waterfall and was fairly boring if truth be told. I did however get to ride an ostrich which made me laugh almost uncontrollably as it shot about the place with surprising speed. That's something else ticked off my bucket list.
With a very jam packed morning behind us we gathered or belongings and made our was down the the road to catch our bus to Da Lat, another five hour drive away.
- comments
John which legs belong to the ostrich!!!!