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Mui Ne
So we weren't sure why it was a sleeper bus despite it being a 6 hour journey during the day! But we opted for top bunks this time and worked out that not all beds are the same size - so we found the best ones for us and we were more comfortable than before! Although this was tainted a little bit by a 1.5 hr unscheduled stop at a petrol station which didn't sell food/drinks!
When we arrive at Mui Ne in the heat of the afternoon we assume the usual roles; I go to find some accommodation whilst Jo waits with the bags! I think this will have to change soon...! Anyway we get a lovely little beach front bungalow with a clean swimming pool and a nice looking beach bar/restaurant - good times! As it is low season at the moment we can get good accommodation like this for cheap but we know that it won't last forever! Mui Ne is just a small fishing village which has grown a beach resort on the side of it as there is 11km of golden beach here with small hotels lining most of it. We spend our first afternoon, predictably, on the beach!
On our second day in Mui Ne we are up at 4am (yes that's right) to start our sand dunes sunrise tour at 4.30am. The first stop on the trip is the "white sand dunes", the sun start to rise as we are driving there in a 4x4 jeep - very beautiful. As we climb to the top of the dunes the sun is just coming up and we watch it quickly ascend before having a go at "sand surfing"! A small boy gave us a demostration and of course I have to try it head first (on a piece of flimsy plastic board) and nearly break my ribs when I hit the ridge at the bottom - and I also break the board, oops. Jo goes for a much more civilised feet first approach and is less bruised! I have to haggle with the small boy about how much to pay him for the broken board before going back to the jeep to go to the "red canyon". The red canyon is a canyon in the red rock where it has split - probably in an earthquake. It's not as spectacular as it sounds! From here we go to the red sand dunes -again very similar to the white ones but with red sand! Beautiful and strange though nevertheless. From here we are taken to the "Fairy Stream"; a very shallow stream which runs over red rock and sand which you can walk up, it's very peaceful and serene once you have got rid of the local children trying to extort money out of you. Next was the fishing village - well really it was the small port/beach area where the fishing boats came in every morning bringing the catch. The catch was collected by mean looking women who then sorted the fish in to baskets according to size, species and some gutted them. They then either sold them on here or took them to the market just up the road. The fish/seafood were just dumped on the floor when they came in - some fish were crushed and some ok, some were dumped on motorbike oil and some on tarpaulin on the floor. Here they were also making fish sauce/fish oil - for which Mui ne is famous - but the stench and the flies here were turning our stomachs so we moved on to the market. The market also had a stench and flies were plenty as the raw fish, meat and all other goods sat on mats on the floor in the heat with someone occasionally wafting a hand over them. We didn't purchase anything here! We were back to th ehotel for 9.15am so we had breakfast and fell asleep in the shade by the pool for a couple of hours!
In the evening we had dinner and went back to our beach bar to watch the fire dancer and another beach bonfire whilst sipping a cocktail. We managed to get a bit more beach time in before we had to leave here although the beautiful beach and watersports where temping us to stay! The sea was actually a bit dirty so we moved on again - this time to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)- our last destination in Vietnam.
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