Sunbathing at last!!! And a little adventure to report!
12 November
A very early start saw us on the hunt for a quick breakfast from the supermarket before the bus came to collect us at 7.30 (actually 8 by time it arrived, late as usual)!! To our delight the bus was a good one, with reclining seats and everything!! The 4 and half hour journey actually took 6 hours but the roads are actually roads so it wasn’t too bad!! Approaching Mui Ne the scenery was quite spectacular – sunshine, amazing white winding beach on one side and enormous sand dunes on the other. I can see why they call it the Sahara of South East Asia. The bus dropped us off at the quieter end of Mui Ne so our choice was to either walk 4 km in the blistering heat, take motorbike taxis’ with our 15kg bags or get a taxi. The choice was obvious but the taxi was costly! That wasn’t the only costly thing; Mui Ne wasn’t quite the secluded beach fishing village we were expecting. It’s full of 4 and 5 star hotels charging 80-250 dollars a night!!! After 2 hours staggering around losing about 2 kilos in sweat we settled on the cheapest bungalow we could find called Small Garden Bungalows. It looked promising as we were lead down the bath toward the beach and were offered a small bungalow just off the sand. As we were trying to settle in we noticed the flaws of this cheap bungalow – stained red sheets, dripping water for a shower and dodgy electrics which were arching! We got the sheets changed and water made even worse by a man with a long straw!!?? I went for a quick dip in the warm South China Sea whilst Shaun had a huge sulk about being so ripped off! We headed back out, into the now stormy weather, to have some overpriced grub! We searched the net and found a nice looking cheap guest house so we went to investigate and found a really nice bungalow across the street for $15, so we booked in for tomorrow!
13 November
We woke up early this morning so we could quickly go and check in to our new hotel, Dragon Fly Guesthouse. The room is soooo much better with clean sheets, a fridge ... even a power shower!! We dumped our bags and found a spot on the scorching beach. Sun bathing at last ... I’m so happy!! After a few hours Shaun got bored so we packed up and went for a stroll along the beach road (luckily he had because I already had a very pink belly). We found the cheap restaurants at last!!
In the evening we headed back to the cheap end of Mui Ne and had some amazing Tiger Prawns, yummy!!
We are really getting eaten alive by mosquitoes down here too; our legs and feet are covered with bites!! We are having to spray ourselves with 50% deet before we go to bed!
14 November
As I was really eager to get back on the beach we woke up early! The beach is really quiet with ‘private beaches’ for the 5* hotels. There were, however, about 30 kite surfers going up and down the bay. Shaun was desperate to get involved but as it costs $50-80 for an hours’ lesson it’s out the budget so he had stick with me on the sun beds!! Now I’m another book down and there are no book shops here!
In the evening we headed to the opposite end of the beach to try and catch the sunset but unfortunately it sets behind the mountains not the beach. We managed to get both our parents, Hollie and my Nan and Pop on Skype. I cannot believe how quickly Kate’s bump has grown - I’m still trying not to think about the fact that I’m not going to meet my little niece or nephew for 5 months!
15 November
We accidently slept in this morning so I didn’t get any beach time today !! We had breakfast/lunch and headed down to the cheap end booking office to book an afternoon sand dune tour.
Two jeeps arrived but only one looked road worthy – obviously not ours!! After setting off it was soon clear that the clutch was badly slipping and it was a struggle to select any gears. We were doubting whether it would make it! Also since it was an open top the wind and sand was absolutely whipping our faces, not helped by the fact that our driver was racing down the roads overtaking everyone!
Our first stop was to Fairy Stream – why ‘fairy’ we don’t know, it was just a shallow stream next to a sand dune. 2 young boys started accompanying us being our ‘guides’ of the river and then started begging for money. It’s hard not to feel sorry for these kids when they are begging for money for school but I can guarantee the money isn’t going to them. Heading back to the truck we passed an area where they produce the famous fish sauce – we were gagging, the smell is putrid rotting fish in the sun! Next we went to the white sand dunes to do some sand boarding. Not quite as great as we were hoping! The sand dunes themselves are quite incredible looking like the Sahara in the middle of Asia but the sand boarding was pretty rubbish! A slow slide sees you to the bottom followed by an exhausting ten minute hike back to the top! After an hour of staggering across the sand dunes we headed back and were on our way to the red canyon. 5 minutes down the road and our suspicions were proved correct with the truck crunching and grinding to a halt leaving a trail of gear box parts behind us! Shaun quickly hurried me out of the truck as we were stuck uphill in the middle of the road with traffic coming in both directions. Luckily another jeep was coming passed and stopped to help. Seeing the gear box smashed all down the road we thought it was game over but no, they got the spanners out and tried to fix it. But as the sun was beginning to set we jumped into the other jeep and left him to it, completely crashing a Hungarian couple’s romantic drive into the sunset!!
We had a quick stop at the Red Canyon and moved swiftly onto the Red/Yellow sand dunes to see the sun just about set! We got some piccys and headed back to the jeep. To our jaw dropping surprise there was our first jeep waiting for us!! He was laughing away and told to get in, we told him NO WAY!!! Thankfully the other jeep let us get back in to head back into town. How he fixed his jeep we have no idea with his 3 spanners - these Asian folk keep fixing the unfixable!!
All in all it wasn’t a bad day for £8 each besides the transport (it’s always the transport) but it was an adventure none the less!!
This evening we decided to treat ourselves to a feast which didn’t turn out so great! Shaun, as usual, ordered chicken curry – a chicken leg, 2 slices of chilly in curry soup, disappointing! We also had tiger prawns again, 400 grams this time, which were severely overcooked no where near as good as the cheap place we ate at a couple of nights ago!! And we’re quite positive they put some prawns back after we weighed them!! This turned out to be our most expensive meal yet and we went away hungry! It just goes to show you don’t always get what you pay for!
16 November
We slept in again today but it didn’t matter as it’s quite overcast. It’s still severely humid though!
We booked a bus ticket for $5 each to Ho Chi Minh City for tomorrow. Here comes our 9th stop!
Lots of love
Jo & Shaun
xxx
