Colours of Mui Ne

On our last night in Sai Gon, we heard some slightly worrying news from Tran, the owner of
Sax'n'Art. When we told him we were heading to the beachside town of Mui Ne, he told us
we might find it hard to get accommodation because a national holiday was coming up. The
national holiday turned out to be a celebration of the anniversary of the reunification of North
and South Viet Nam. It was going to coincide with our visits to Mui Ne and Da Lat - the two
biggest holiday destinations for the people of Sai Gon.

On arrival in Mui Ne, our fears looked to be unwarrented, as a hoard of motorbike riders
swarmed us, offering to take us to various hotels with rooms for $US5 a night. When you're
backpacking, a good thing to remember is that if something seems to good to be true, it
probably is - this was the case here. All the $5 hotels were either full or had heavily inflated
prices because of the holiday. Finally, we found a hotel that was willing to offer us a hotel for
$6 for that night and $10 for the following. This turned out to be one of the biggest scores we
have had on the trip. The hotel was more like a beachside resort and we had the best room in
the place, it was the only second floor room with a window facing the beach through the palm
trees - sweet.

On our one full day in Mui Ne, we took a motorbike tour (each of us on the back of a
separate bike) to the local attractions. This turned out to be one of our favourite days of the
trip. Mui Ne is a world of colours, and flying past colourful sand dunes, the azure sea covered
with colourful fishing boats, white sands, lush palms and bougainvilleas was amazing. Even the
graves in the cemeteries were colourful.

Our first stop was at the white sand dunes, which rose above a cool blue lake covered with
water lillies. Some local kids had boards we rented to slide down the dunes and into the lake.

It was at the white sand dune that Niels' Adies sandles met their fate - the sand was so hot
that it melted the glue that held the strap on. Now Niels has earned a bit of a reputation as
McGyver (not sure of spelling). The Italians, Andrea and Emi christened him this for his clever
use of knots and straps when attaching his pack to a ute in Cambodia. He's continued to live
up to this with his amazing ability to dream up inventive ways to hang our mosquito net from
seemingly impossible places with nothing but a piece of string. So, when the Adies straps
came unstuck, he used first the camera strap, then the drawstring from his backpack, to tie
the soles of the sandles to his feet to stop them from getting scorched on the sand. But when
we got back to our drivers, they put Niels' reputation to shame. They found small pieces of
wire on the ground and threaded them through the shoes, effectively sewing the straps back
on - we love those guys!

Another highlight of the day was the view across the bay at a fishing village (third pic). In the bay, about
800 colourful boats were moored. Boats in Vietnam are typically made of wood and painted
bright blues and reds - the sight was spectacular. The boats are moored in the bay all day,
sailing out to sea in the evening, then returning in the morning with their catch.

The final stop on our tour was the Fairy Stream (last two pics) - a creek we walked up, through palms and
colourful gourges erroded into crazy formations from red and white sands.

The beach that our resort fronted on was our favourite place to hang when we weren't
galavanting around on the back of motorbikes. There were deck chairs to lie on and shells to
admire. Like everything else in Mui Ne, the colour of the scallop shells was such that they
looked almost artificial - bright yellows, reds, purples, oranges and pinks. There were also
heaps of big cone shells and inside one we found the biggest hermit crab we've ever seen.
Another charming thing about our beach was the fact that in the evenings it was crowded, but
not with tourists, with locals, some enjoying the beach, but most collecting shellfish and
preparing to leave for the night's fishing.

We ate fresh seafood for almost every meal in Mui Ne. The highlight of this was on our
second night, when we were relaxing with a bottle of Vietnamese wine (or two) and crackers
and cheese on our beach. A little old lady approached us and tried to ask us something in
Vietnamese. After several minutes of confusion, we decided she was asking us to watch her
stuff for her. We said yes. It was the best mistake we've ever made. She came back a short
time later with a bucket of hot coals and it turned out that we had agreed to have her cook us
some fresh scallops, all for the price of AUS$2. Bargain.