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Good morning!
It's 9:27am and were on our way to Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon for our final stop in Vietnam!
We set off this morning at 8am from Mui Ne and should reach the city in around 4 hours... But you never know in Vietnam!
The journey two days ago down from Da Lat was spectacular! After a morning of driving Martin around on my scooter to the best places I had found the previous day we got the 12pm bus. We were on the same horrendous old bus that we arrived in Da Lat on but this time I managed to bag the front passenger seat, result! I enjoyed the views as we descended from 1500m down to sea level and at times they were unbelievable! Once we reached the bottom I was surprised to find that we were driving amongst sand dunes, it was like being back in Dubai! Eventually we arrived in Mui Ne and as we hadn't booked ahead we had the task of finding somewhere to stay. We walked to the popular Backpacker Village to find that it was full and then tried a few of the places close by. All were full! One place, Lotus Village/Spa was lovely and as I walked out after being turned away a local man told me he had a room next door! I went with him followed by Martin, Sarah and Kathy to find a big room with a door that practically opened out into the sea! It was a little run down to say the least but it was clean and had enough room for all of us. The best thing about it was that it only cost us $25 for the night for the room! Martin and I shared a massive double bed and the girls shared too. We met Kathy and Sarah on Castaways right at the start of our time in Vietnam and they have followed us down overlapping in most places on the way.
After dropping our bags in the room the natural thing to do was to get into the sea! It wasn't the nicest beach as there wasn't really any sand and the coastline was covered more or less with a sea defence wall! We could get in and out easily though and from the sea I realised we were literally next door to the posh Lotus Hotel I had tried to get in earlier. They had steps to the beach from their infinity pool and it was just too tempting not to walk up into the hotel like I was staying there and enjoy a dip! That's exactly what I did and when the 3 others joined me it was great! We stood out a mile as we were the only western people in the place so we decided to stay low in the water and not draw attention to ourselves! This didn't last long!
We decided after a while that we would brave the jacuzzi that overlooked the sea. As soon as we got in a Vietnamese family came over and their son, who was 6 years old and rather large, proceeded to practice his English with us! He was brilliant and was pretty much fluent telling us all about his family, sisters birthday plans and the fact his Dad had taught him English. The only problem was he was shouting at the top of his voice and our plan to try and stay discrete was clearly not going to materialise!
The next thing we knew the little boy, who's name I don't know, was stood on the side of the pool and singing his favourite English songs and dancing! It was hilarious!! By now we had gained a small crowd and as we clapped along to the whole of the songs he sang we were all sat there bemused at what was happening, it was great fun though!!
It was at this point that a security guard did a lap of the pool! He looked over at us with a very confused look and we tried to act relaxed... It seemed to work and I think that because the locals were enjoying our company so much he decided to let us stay!
The little boy proceeded to make Martin and I both sing him a song before his Dad sang one for us! It was all very funny and I loved how confident the boy was! He could definitely be famous when he's older!
After receiving an invite to his sisters birthday party that evening we said our goodbyes and made for the exit to the beach! We left just as quickly as we had arrived, unnoticed and away back to our cheap room next door! Best of both worlds if you ask me! :)
We got changed and went to a Mexican for dinner before going to the hostel for drinks! Martin and I were very antisocial and listened to Bolton Vs Sheffield United in one ear each and went wild when Spearing scored a superb volley! Bolton actually managed to WIN and we couldn't have asked for a better start to the season beating one of our promotion hopeful rivals!
After a few drinks we walked down the road to a club but by this time I had a bad headache and just wanted my bed. I'm bored of going to bars and clubs just for the sake of it now so I decided to go to bed and get a good nights sleep again.
Yesterday we all woke up pretty late and had a lazy morning before our tour in the afternoon. We had booked on the Sand Dune tour and Martin and I, along with Scott who we had met up with again, we're all in the same jeep! First we visited the Fairy Stream and it was here that we had the chance to ride an Ostrich, something we had both wanted to do since seeing the pictures of some of Martins friends. Martin went first and after a slow start the thing went wild and Martin very nearly fell off! I was up next and it was good fun and another thing to say I've done. In reality it was a 30 second wonder!
We walked all the way up the stream to the end through bizarre rock formations and sand dunes. After returning to the jeep we then made our way to the sand dunes around 30 mins away. Everyone was looking forward to this but I guess when you live in a desert a sand dune is a sand dune!
We decided that we would get quad bikes for 30 mins and enjoyed thrashing around the dunes on them. Thrashing is a loose term though as for most of the time we were stuck in the sand or trying our best to get the useless pieces of metal up the dunes! My bike kept cutting out so I swapped bikes for another one... 3 minutes later I was just riding along gently and the bloody wheel fell off!! I wasn't going fast at all so nothing major happened but the bike was going nowhere! The wheel was completely detached from the bike and as the guy came up I was expecting a big bill! However, he simply swapped me back to my old bike and off I went! Phew!
I went to join Scott and Martin down at the bottom of a bowl and instantly regretted it! It was impossible to get out on our bikes so after trying our best we gave in and waited for help. The local guys soon arrived and seemed to drive them out no problem much to our amazement!
We then returned to Mui Ne via a sunset sand dune view point and again took a cheeky swim in the Lotus infinity sea view pool! We managed to go unnoticed again and went back to the hostel for drinks after having a nice meal in a French restaurant.
I enjoyed watching Leicester Vs Man United on the big screen before heading to bed as I'm really over the small talk with other travellers at the moment. There is only so many times you can have the same conversation of; Where are you from? What do you do? Where are you going? Where have you been? What were the best bits? It's probably because I'm not feeling that great but for now I'm happy to just enjoy the days, have a few drinks and then go to bed :)
On our arrival in Ho Chi Minh I'm looking forward to learning more about the Vietnam War. I've heard lots of good yet harrowing reviews about the museum and look forward to experiencing it for myself. I'm excited to get to Cambodia too and although we will have a day less there now, because of an extra night in Mui Ne, I'm sure we will have enough time.
For now though I'm going to get a few extra minutes of sleep as we drive down the coast.
Bye for now!
Tom x
- comments
Granny Well only you could sneak into a posh hotel Tom ! And riding an ostrich . Must have looked hilarious . ! Enjoyed the Blog !! X
FG Fab tales of your travels as ever! Hope you're soon feeling better. X
Dad Love the little Brakeman ......