Mui Ne

Back to Ho Chi Minh City

After quitting our jobs and leaving the Mekong delta behind us, we headed back to Ho Chi Minh City for a couple of days as we finalised our travels beyond.

After my previous encounter of this city left me relieved to leave, this time I was glad to be back compared to where we'd been! We stayed right in the heart of the backpacker district this time and so were much happier.

The time in HCMC was spent planning where to go, where to stay and how to get about on our travels ahead of us. We also sent some clothes back to England to make our bags lighter - which was always the plan when we went travelling - and we sent 2.5kilos for about £20 which wasn't too bad (but it'll take 3 months!). Other than that we frequented our favourite rooftop bar again and again for the best value meals and drinks we've seen yet.

Mui Ne

Sunday morning we set out for Mui Ne on the coach at 7:15am. The journey took 5.5 hours and we did manage some sleep on board. We then arrived at Mui Ne and headed up to our resort - Mui Ne hills. We could've stayed in a cheaper guesthouse than this but it was still low price enough, plus it has 3 pools and after the time we'd had recently we thought it would be worth it just to get our happiness back.

Claire gets stuck into life by the pool!

After dumping our bags we checked out the beach, which is lovely but not the best I've been to by far - there are black bits everywhere (assume its rock), it's only a couple of kilometers long, there's a bit of litter and the place is absolutely overrun by kitesurfers. This place is paradise for them as the winds are strong enough for them to get good air, but not dangerous. As a result we think our time here will be spent poolside rather than beachside.

Mui Ne beach - nice, but I've seen a lot better.

The room and hotel are both great, considerably the best we've stayed in so far. The weather here is glorious - blue skies, hot (35 mostly), but enough breeze to take the edge off the heat.

We have 4 nights here and the majority of them are spent sunbathing by the pool, having a dip, drying off and then repeating the cycle again until lunch or dinner. It's great to have that holiday feeling, something I've been crying out for ever since we left England.

At night we tried a few places to eat, having mainly local dishes and  most are unspectacular. I couldn't bring myself to try this local delight though: (even though I've had it before!)

Tonights special is.... Nah you're alright

One place three doors down from our hotel tempted us in though with a really good price for a burger, and after loads of local cuisine lately I couldn't help but succumb to something familiar! The place had a real beach vibe to it and I was so surprised at how good the burgers were too, top notch!

There are tours we could go on - to nearby sand dunes and to a "fairy spring", but we don't think they sound good enough to drag us away from the pool (seen sand dunes before, and the spring sounds naff).

Inbetween sunbathing and swimming, we also apply for a few jobs as we prepare for the next steps - working outside of Vietnam is now becoming a more likely possibility by the day.

Mui Ne - a summary

Mui Ne is a lovely place and is clearly on the up, there's plenty that's recently been built and seemingly more on the way. As mentioned, if you're a kitesurfer then this place is for you, otherwise the beach is nice but I'm sure some of the lovely hotels are even better than the beach.

Mui Ne reminds us of a Spanish tourist resorts in many ways, the look and feel mainly, but again that's been kind of welcome as it's at least felt a bit more familiar! There's also a particular foible to this place that we've noticed - there's a HELL of a lot of Russians here, so much so that lots of signs even have Russian on them. Maybe this is their version of Malaga??

So in all, our last few days have been fairly uneventful, but they've been critical to getting our state of mind back in the right place - if a bit of R&R can't do that for you, then what will?
Tomorrow we leave with fresh tans to the hills of Da Lat for something very different. I'm not sure I've had enough of sunbathing and swimming yet, but I'm looking forward to it all the same.

Relaxation time at the pool