Mui Ne

Another 4 hours on a bus saw us in Mui Ne, another beachside location. Mui Ne is a bit of a Mecca for kite and wind surfing, originally we thought we might try our hand at it but the high cost saved ourselves broken limbs. The place itself is quite nice but certainly no Phu Quoc. We rented a moped to get about and went to the dunes, they are immense and from the photo’s it looks like somewhere in the Middle East.

Mui Ne - Sand dunes

At the dunes, Vietnamese kids try and rent out flimsy boards so that you can sledge down the dunes. Foreigners, are easy picking as we can be spotted a mile off. We quickly had new friends who each wanted to rent their board to us and also show us the best place to use it. We trekked up the dunes to a “good” spot and I tried my hand at sledging with the assistance of the back up team – it wasn’t as simple as just sitting on it. You had to sit on it just so and lean in a certain way! It was fun but a little disappointing so they took us off to the “big one”. The “big one” was pretty steep and managed to get a fair speed up but your bum gets very hot on these things presumably because of the friction. We had a good laugh with the kids although they were soon looking for other gullible foreigners once we had paid our rental charges!

Mui Ne - Sand sledging

We went exploring on the moped and came across a beach with tub like boats. I had seen these before although in the water rather than out of it. Some are made of fibreglass whilst others are traditionally woven ones. They are actually used as fishing boats but we are still at a bit of a loss as to how they get very far as there is no engine and only one oar – Em ventured that they would go round in circles!!

Mui Ne - tub boat

Fish Sauce is a very big thing in Vietnam and is an essential ingredient in some of the cuisine. Whilst it tastes OK in the food, it has a very nasty smell. In several places in Mui Ne we could smell the pungent stuff and it was only through exploring that we found a back yard full of vats of it – not nice! More nasty stories of fish sauce to follow in the next blog entry!

Mui Ne - Fish sauce vats

We also went to the so-called Fairy Spring, not sure why they are called this but several places seem to have them!! Effectively it was just a stream which you can wade through to reach the source. We decided against wading to the source but the stream cut through sand dunes and the scenery was worth a few photo’s.

Mui Ne - Fairy stream

Mui Ne, Vietnam