130 miles north of Saigon is a relatively small coastal town on the South China Sea called Mui Ne. Like most of the beaches in the area, palm trees line the shores of Mui Ne. Unfortunately, an influx of tourists from predominantly Russian and other Asian countries have flocked to the region, resulting in dozens of beachfront resorts up and down the entire coast. The weather here is 75 and sunny, providing the optimal destination for Russians who want to escape the beginning of the winter. For this reason it is one of the two high tourist seasons in southern Vietnam.
We only left Bulgaria three months ago, but the cyrillic script on nearly every restaurant menu and street shop brings us back! Fortunately for us, Ben can read Russian and has a rudimentary level of the language. The streets are packed with Russians whose hobbies include drinking, eating, and drinking some more. We knew within minutes of getting off the bus and walking down the main drag that this town would be enjoyable but would lack the typical Vietnamese culture and feel.
For maybe the first time in our travels, we had booked a proper hostel, Mui Ne Hills Backpackers. Of course we didn't stay in the main dormitories, we were upgraded to Mui Ne Hills Villas. There were hundreds of foreigner tourists, mainly Europeans of the younger crowd. With the except of a couple cockroaches, one rat, and a snake that we saw, the hostel was surprisingly nice. The view from outside our room was beautiful. The hostel had five different buildings with a pool for each building. It seemed that our particular building was at 50% capacity, so we had the pool to ourselves for the most part.
The first night in the hostel our youthful sides came out. Alongside three dozen other backpackers, we participated in a Trivia Game (we came in second place), Nadine entered into a Limbo contest (she took home second place), and a partner's beer pong tournament (again, second place). Three games, three second place finishes. It's not a bad place to be, especially for two people in their early 30's. We still got it. It's not quite first, but definitely higher than third.
On the second day we booked an afternoon/sunset trip around the city. On the tours we have participated in South Africa, India, and Vietnam, they always end up being....touristy. Whenever you have a large group of people, there is always some sort of issue, whether it is a bathroom break, tardiness on behalf of the customers or organizers, or miscommunications. For $3 a person though, we left our reservations at the door and went along for the ride. Much to our delight, we didn't have much of the aforementioned problems, with the exception of an Israeli tourist almost getting left behind. The only issue we had, which wasn't really an issue, was a mildly aggressive driver. He was extremely vocal, frequently barking at the passengers to be back at the the van at specific times. A couple times he pointed at the digital time displayed in two different locations inside the vehicle, but both of the times were hours off from real time. It didn't appear as if he was aware. The funny part was that he didn't care about punctuality for the tour itself, but he had his own side business to conduct. Four times the van stopped on the side of the road so he could run his own errands. We stopped to pick up food in a plastic bag, only to stop 10 minutes later to drop it off elsewhere. Again we stopped to pick up a full on decorated, dress up birthday cake, only to deliver it moments later down the road. We counted the amount he paid for the cake, and the amount he was paid upon delivery. Sure enough, our driver was earning a profit from his endeavors. It was all quite humorous.
The tour took us on four stops:
Fairy Stream
Fishing Village
Red Sand Dunes
White Sand Dunes
There was no added value of hiring the "tour," as it more was like an all day shuttle service, which served its purpose. The places we visited were spectacular.
Mui Ne was a really pleasant place to visit. Definitely worth a stop if traveling in Nam and have a couple extra days.
Here we found what may be our next business opportunity:
Rolled Ice Cream:
gofundme.com coming soon.
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