Finally we have hit the warm weather again! After barely seeing the
sun for over 3 weeks, we arrived in Mui Ne after a long 21 hours on
the bus at 130pm on Saturday and although it was cloudy it was still
plenty hot enough! We found a cheap mini hotel, which bizarrely also
doubled up as an opticians (we saw not a single customer in there the
whole time!) and then spent the rest of the afternoon getting our
bearings in this odd little place - there's no town as such, and it is
just a long stretch of land for about 13km with a beach and a road
running alongside. It is also full of Russian holiday makers and even
the restaurants have menus in Russian!

In the evening Hutch was a very dutiful girlfriend and came and
watched the United match with me in the strangest small place that
basically felt like someones front room. Given that you could hear a
pin drop most of the time I think my jumping around and shouting was a
bit unexpected to the little Vietnamese barman, though I reckon it was
the most action taking place anywhere along the strip as we soon
figured out that we were in low season and there was nothing at all
going on in the evenings!

We entertained ourselves at dinner by cooking crocodile over hot coals
at our table and even enjoyed a bottle of cheap wine. In the absence
of any better alternatives we went to the local 'casino', which we can
safely say was the worst one ever, and after losing our money at the
computerised roulette wheel the workers couldn't kick us out quick
enough! We then walked home at 1145pm on a saturday night with places
already closing up!

The weather was still a bit couldy when we woke up on Sunday so we had
a lie in and then after lunch figured out how to get to the beach -
even this wasn't easy as there is only the occassionally (ie. km's
apart) alleyway leading through, otherwise you have to stealth past
security in the beach side resorts and cut through them! We had a
nice relaxing couple of hours on the beach and watching the kite
surfers (which Mui Ne is famous for) and noticed there was a distinct
ledge in the beach where it seemed to drop down and form two tiers.
We later learned that this was a recent thing and had been caused by
the tsunami from Japan! Scary stuff!

In the evening we found a really cheap restaurant and then went the
Wax bar - according to the LP "the most happening place in Mui Ne".
Well, not tonight is wasn't, but we did bump into Leo and Kirsty again
whch was nice. The 'security guard' at our opticians/hotel was
sleeping soundly when we got back and we even managed to open the
padlock and gate and put it all back again without him stirring - very
reassuring!

It was cracking the flags on Monday so we had a good stint catching
some rays back on the beach and then started our jeep tour to the
nearby sand dunes. First we had a walk down the Fairy Stream which
was nice and then stopped off at the fishing village where there was a
LOT of boats! After that we visited both the White and the Red dunes,
though they weren't as good as the ones in NZ so we didn't bother
hiring any plastic that the locals tried to sell us. Instead, we took
half the dunes back home with us and spent ages in the shower getting
rid of all the sand!

For tea we tried one of the small seafront outdoor places which serve
up fresh fish. The orders were very hit and miss but we think we both
ended up with barracuda, though I certainly did not get the promised
baked potato despite trying hard! After, we went for a drink at what
would have beer a really cool bar had it had people in it, and Hutch
whooped my ass at pool (again).

Hutch's entry: our time in Mui Ne has only highlighted how bad Jonny's
knowledge of the animal kingdom is (although I did already know it was
bad as he once asked me what animal pork comes from). When deciding
how much crocodile to order he said "I'll order 200g because fish have
a lot of bones in them don't they?!" then looked blank when I told him
a crocodile is actually a reptile not a fish! Also, another recent
conversation has shown he has difficulty distinguishing between a
weasel and a pheasant!! Don't think he will make it onto David
Attenborough any time soon!

We had a bit of spare time before our afternoon bus to Saigon on
Tuesday and so we played some mini golf, and failed yet again to have
a beer free day since we got a free one included!!