This morning we got up early and rushed around packing and grabbing breakfast before boarding the bus to Mui Ne - a well known but not too touristy coastal resort 4-5 hrs East of Saigon. There was of course a detor to stop off at a food place for toiletting and purchasing of vegetable crisp things which all tasted a bit like soil. When we thought we were arriving it was overcast and wet, but then we drove through to the apparent micro-climate of Mui Ne where it was scorching hot.

4 men dressed in their smartest shirts hassled us onto the backs of mopeds and drove us down the ocean road (slightly set back by the larger resort hotels there) and showed us a couple of hostels - we settled for Hai Yen hostel, at US$6 per night with a nice little pool and a lovely and very cheap "restaurant". We unpacked and headed for the beach, the stretch just off the hotel wasn't a particularly nice bit but it was lovely to cotch out in the sun by the sea and remind our pale bodies what the sun felt like. The sea water was really warm, and it stayed fairly shallow for a long time so was lovely to bob around in for a bit.

After we'd headed back and Lydia and I had a dip in the pool, we all showered and got a taxi back into the main bit for dinner at a reccommended restaurant. Here we ordered a few bottles of our favourite Vang Dalat and some fish. Which was literally just a fish on a plate, I had to slide off to cough out a bone at one point - but it was sooo fresh. Nice.

We befriended a lash-bird who was covered in red blotch because she sprayed on her suncream and couldn't be bothered to rub it in - however between her boring stories of how much vodka she'd drunk in each place she'd been to thus far and how many times she'd thrown up, she imparted a gem of advise. There's a road from Hoi An to Hue where you can rent motorbikes and bike first along the coast and then through the mountains, and the locals take your stuff ahead for you and you just enjoy the road trip which apparently takes the best part of a day. They did it on Top Gear one time so rumour has it, so we are definately going to investigate that... sounds awesome.

We walked back that night, it took longer than we estimated.

As an aside, when I just re-read the previous blog, I realised that I made the Vietnamese out to be massively anti-American and filthy. They are truly lovely people, everyone friendly and wanting to help you out, not even with the demand for money afterwards (though sometimes) and very welcoming of American tourists nowadays, from what we've seen. I really like this country.