Mui Ne Beach Getaway

**big thanks to everyone who has checked out the blog.  i started tracking traffic about a month and a half ago and have just surpassed 1,000 visits!  very cool.  helps motivate me to keep recording our travels.**

i've been SUPER frustrated with the computers around here. one of our memory cards from the camera somehow became corrupted. grr one of the internet cafes was able to burn a copy of the pictures but couldn't fix the card.  i also haven't been able to log into my blogging account for over a week because the connections all time out with this website for some reason.  i'm currently in a vietnamese post office.

let us continue...
once again we left bright and early. this time our destination was mui ne. one of the less developed beach towns accessible by the average tourist. we aren't exactly blazing any new trails. definitely something to be said for doing that but it takes a lot of time and energy in this part of the world. we thought a month in vietnam was a long time but we are feeling rushed already!
the drive was somewhat painful since it took almost twice as long as the posted time with stops here and there on our non-stop bus. something we have come to expect. most of the way we travelled on a one lane highway with the driver sitting on the horn informing motorcyclists to move it or lose it. as we got within about 30 mins of mui ne we could see the blue green ocean peeking through the trees and increasingly mountainous landscape.

we arrived early afternoon in the heat of the day without accoms. so we suited up with our packs and a tote bag a piece along the main (the only) street. we stopped in at a few that had been recommended but they were full. we ended up taking a recommendation by our faithful lonely planet book (which happened to be the bus stop we started at). man did we score! ended up on the ground floor room closest to the beach. we fell asleep and woke up to the waves. about 10 paces to the sand and the beautiful emerald south china sea.

we jumped in as soon as we managed to find our swim shorts in our packs. the hotel also had a nice centre courtyard with heated pool. not bad for $25 a night. hehe

the next day we hired a driver and jeep for the day to take us to the main sights of the area:
a fishing village, red canyon/dunes, white dunes and a creek randomly named the fairy stream.

the fishing village was just a stop along the highway for a photo op. the only thing that didn't quite make it as picturesque as you might think is the fact that yards and yards of fish were drying along the breaker wall below us. we shot and ran.

the red canyon was amazing. it has been carved out by water finding its way to the ocean during heavy rainfalls. the sand was very fine and a vibrant rusty orange colour. you could break off pieces of the wall and watch it turn to powder in your hand. it was also a billion degrees inside the canyon. we climbed the walls at one point to get some air and take a peek at the prairie like landscape that stretched out forever with the ocean as backdrop. we were on our own which gave it a magical and more adventurous feeling. our driver stayed back at the jeep for a snooze.

next up was the white dunes. definitely the highlight (other than the beach) at mui ne. pictures don't even come close to capturing the size and vastness. we rented sheets of plastic (crazy carpets for you crazy canucks) for a dollar and took a crack at sliding down some of them. my runs were really slow and not that much fun. sand in parts i didn't know i had by the end of it all. more like mud seeing as though i was sweating like a pig. good thing the beauty was enough to distract me for most of the time. the sliding was more work than it was worth for my part. roel on the other hand had a different shape of plastic to slide on and the technique to match! he picked up some good speed and hollered all the way. haha it was much fun watching. you know how i said it was hot in the canyon? i was wrong. oh my. imagine being in a desert with really high humidity. they recommend you don't were sandals because the sand gets even too warm for them. the heat really kicks in when you're trying to get up some of the steeper dunes to get a birds eye view...every step you take brings you half a step back. it's like going up a down escalator that's going double time inside of a broiling oven.

lastly we saw the fairy river. it's a small creek about ankle deep (up to waist in some parts so had to watch your step). you start near the beach and walk your way up until you hit a small waterfall. the walk up is stunning. you have red and white banks/cliffs on one side and green vegetation on the other. water comes from out of nowhere. literally out of the side of the sandy wall and feeds into the stream. the stream is warm and made up of a variety of colours dependant on what colour the wall is at the source of water. make sense? i'll just show you a picture...

side note: i saw a long water snake a few yards ahead of me. roel has a real snake phobia so lucky i was in front. he already stepped on a sharp rock and was worried he would lose his foot (yes, really). hahaha i didn't confirm or deny i saw a snake until we were back at the jeep. ;)

on our last day there we stayed inside until lunch watching the olympics and recovering from the heat exhaustion from the prior day. cheered on the canadian women's hockey team as they won gold! another shout out to the canadian men's curling and hockey teams!!! goldgoldgold! the way it should be. americans please don't be too bitter about the hockey ok? keep in mind that you have run away with the medal count and us canadians are lucky to get any medals at the summer olympics. thanks.

we hit the beach again in the afternoon and had a long late dinner before we took a night bus to nha trang. note: don't take the night bus unless you have something to knock you out. luckily we did. i was the guinea pig (roel didn't take them). it was an anti-anxiety prescribed by his doctor that's supposed to help you sleep very soundly. i forget the name - it ends in 'pam'. only downside is that i felt groggy for a half day after. definitely going back to the meds for the trip from melbourne to la in may.