Mui Ne

From Saigon we got a bus to the beach at Mui Ne. The 3 hour journey turned into a four hour journey after a puncture where we were stranded for a couple of hours, but the bus driver managed to make up the time. Very quickly! Eeek! It was great to be at the beach again, not the best one we've seen, but lovely to relax and take it easy for a few days. The bungalows were set in a beautifully landscaped garden and the staff were lovely. There was a very sweet girl serving our breakfast who responed with 'Yes' and a very puzzled expression to everything we said eg:
Beth: 'I'd like a pancake with chocolate sauce but no banana please'
Girly: 'Yes?'
Ben: 'And I'd like lipton tea with fresh milk'
Girly: 'Yes?'
The beach is famous for its strong winds in the afternoon and there are hundreds of kite surfers with various degrees of skill which made for some interesting entertainment whilst we were sunning ourselves & doing not a lot else.
In an effort to prevent ourselves merging with our sun loungers we took a day trip out to the 'famous' sand dunes of Mui Ne. There's some red ones and some white ones. The white dunes are hugely impressive, it was like walking into a film and I half expected to see Peter O'Toole & Omar Shariff come bounding over the horizon strapped to a pair of camels. This didn't happen of course but we did see loads of kids with sheets of plastic asking us if we wanted to dune-surf. We didn't. It looked rubbish. The dunes stretch for what seems like miles and it's a very incongruous site to behold smack in the middle of Vietnam. We tried a brief amble but quickly realised that distance is a very fluid concept when surrounded by the featureless roll of the dunes. It also has a habit of moving a lot beneath your feet.



We took in the red dunes at sunset, (also featuring kids with plastic), and they were equally impressive being of a deep and flawless terracotta colour. They reminded me of those slightly naff little bottles of coloured sand that always seemed to be for sale at seaside resorts. Only bigger. And more beautiful.
We treated ourselves, (again), to some great food at the local Italian and had real French wine. The staff attempted to teach us some very basic Vietnamese, (we're just about managing the basic 'please' & 'thank you's' now). For our last night we had a buffet dinner in the swanky 'Sailng Club' resort next door. Very nice.