31st October - 5th November 2011
Start as you mean to go on.
The afternoon we arrived in Mui Ne, stretched along a 12 kilometre narrow beach on the Southern coast of Vietnam facing the South China Sea, we did nothing but tuck into lunch, relax and then take a little stroll to an open air beach side restaurant for our dinner.
The next day we did nothing. No really, my diary entry in the little Moleskine book my little sister bought me, looks like this: '01/11 NOTHING Crackers am, stayed in bed.' We ventured out for food of course, but for hunger pangs and calls of nature I didn't leave the bed. Djalma went out to speak to a couple of guys about kite-surfing courses and at this point I was considering windsurfing – a much cheaper and quicker alternative. We also watched a video explaining the basics of kite-surfing, the wind window and how to set up, launch and land a kite, etc.
We made up for our sloth-like behaviour the next day by getting up early for breakfast and then sitting in a café Djalma met with a local dude who spoke some English and taught privately at a much lower price than many of the schools on the beach strip. I sat in the café, a little further back from the beach but not so far that the cool breeze from the sea didn't keep me cool.
Djalma visited me partway through his first (and only) lesson, sitting down to reapply sun cream and to catch his breath – after a run through on the beach about how the kite works he practised controlling it on the beach and then in the sea. He loves learning new things particularly when there is some adrenaline involved, he was back on the beach within a few minutes and commencing some power dragging. He explained this later, without a board and when manipulating the kite for extra power, you are hauled bodily through the sea half in and half out of the water – the kite's pull is stronger than normal and so you are pulled a lot more strongly than when you start out practising. He had some nasty red marks on his skin from the harness attaching the kite to his backside (like a big, black, super reinforced nappy for adventure loving adults). My photos uploaded and blog partially updated we decided to take a walk along the beach – which despite being there for two days and only a stones throw from the beach, I still hadn't visited.
We walked towards the sun and a small group of kite-surfers at the end of the beach. The sky was blue, the breeze was delicious and the people falling off the windsurfing boards was good comedy. The light was beautiful and turned everything into a silhouette, the spray from the sea backlit into bright white sparkles. We crossed up through a hotel under construction and made our way back along the road, stopping at a restaurant for dinner; salad and noodles, before going home to watch a film and... relax!
Djalma slept late but we were up and out to the little café next door to our hotel for a delicious breakfast, if memory serves me correctly (and it does) Djalma had an omelette with onions, tomatoes and bacon with a baguette and I had grilled zucchini and vegetables with melted cheese in a baguette. It was gorgeous. For the rest of the afternoon Djalma prayed for wind that never appeared and I continued writing – having much to still catch up on my blog. In the evening we strolled along to a recommended restaurant for seafood and had the most delicious garlic prawns swerved with rice, a couple of salad and some seafood fried rice,. We walked a couple of kilometres along the pavement and needing another dinner, Djalma got a chicken noodle soup on the way back.
Friday rolled round and after a week without yoga, I rolled out my mat on the balcony the next floor up and sweated my decidedly unlimber ass off for an hour and a half. We went out for breakfast and sat out on some sun loungers on the beach, I started reading another book while Djalma walked to the nearest end of the beach and tried to swim back – it was laughably far and he walked most of the way. We held out until 2 in the afternoon before we decided that there probably wasn't any rain and decided to rent out a scooter for the afternoon and visit the fishing village and the red and white sand dunes further along the coast. Walking back to the hotel we bumped into Janet, the older kiwi lady who we first met on the Cambodian border coming over from Laos, after a few pleasantries we said goodbye and went to sort ourselves out.
After asking around the rental places, Djalma ended up asking one of the many moto drivers how much he would charge for four hours, we paid about 3.50USD, promised to be back by 7pm and set off. Two minutes down the road Djalma realised that we didn't have the GoPro and left me taking pictures while he went back to get it.
We set off stopping once to take pictures of nets covering the roadside grass holding lots of little fish drying in the sun.
We pulled up at a small bay where there were loads of fishing boats bobbing round and people in coolie hats sorting out their fishy business. I can't imagine the scene has changed much in the last hundred years.
We walked down the slopes where more of the tiny fish lay scattered, left to dry in the sun. We saw a guy spread them out, baskets delivered to him by two ladies bringing up the fresh fish which he would throw out in wide arcs. Magic.
We decided to walk down to the beach and get a little closer to the fish infused action. Djalma's Dad, Ned, called and he and Djalma chatted while I took photos. There were so many things everywhere I looked, boys playing in the sea, men pushing round dish shaped boats out to sea, dudes just chilling, ladies collecting water, ladies watching ladies collect water, a lone hawker with her two baskets balanced either end of a long pole slung across her shoulder. The light was moving across the water and casting everything in long shadows, sprinkling the water with silver light.
Beautiful, but more places to see, we got back on the scooter and headed towards the next stop, the Red Sand Dunes. Whenever we came to a crossroads we would mime the sand dunes (a horizontal hand movement that looked as much like waves as sand dunes depending on the interpretation). Anyway we were waved in the right direction because we came across sand flowing onto the road, young boys with plastic sheets directing the simple process of parking the scooter and then jumping on us with offers of sheet rental. We walked to the top of one, saw a line of trees and a few slopes (I don't mean to be a spoil sport but after the Sahara Desert it wasn't all that impressive).
We decided to leave it and try and make it back later for sunset (hahaha! Like we would have that much time!), back on the bikes we headed towards the clouds and drove along a road right next to the coast. The beach stretched out for a long time but we said goodbye before the end turning inland, passing several patches of land dotted with beautiful graves.
We carried on and despite the spitting stopped briefly at what I imagined were the Fairy Springs, bright red earth cleaved down the middle like a mini canyon, but dry as a bone. It really started to rain after that and we pulled over to a small roadside café? I wasn't quite sure what it was because they didn't sell food but they gave us two free cups of tea.
The rain let up and we carried on driving carefully on the wet road. We were still a little way from the White Dunes and the day felt like it was coming to a close long before it should have, the clouds were so heavy and grey. We pushed on down a dirt road, oh man I hate these on a scooter, we skidded a little in the muddy parts but nothing a big girl like me couldn't handle, and stopped to take a couple of photos – it was about 5.30pm by now and sunset, not that we would see it, wasn't far away. We carried on and walked to the edge of the dunes, took our picture and then decided to head back.
The rain held off until we got on the scooter and started it up, then the heavens let loose. We sat and waited and then the mosquitoes let loose and with our deadline looming and no better weather forthcoming we decided to head homeward. We didn't stop once on the way back, well actually we did get a little lost and got pointed in the right direction by a couple of old guys who apparently found us hilarious – they didn't stop laughing. It rained on and off and we made it back just after 7pm, cold, wet, tired and hungry. We went back to the restaurant with the garlic prawns and had a pineapple bonanza of a dinner there.
After hearing unpromising weather reports of more rain and no wind for the next couple of days we decided to cut our losses and get a bus to Hoi An, about 200km up the coast. After breakfast, Djalma posted our mail (20USD for a couple of envelopes and 5 postcards!) we had lunch and then were hustled onto the tourist bus by the relay drivers who were both suffering from severe and permanent PMS. The first leg of the trip to Nha Trang passed without much incident, the drivers were loud and rude but left us alone as soon as we settled in. We arrived in Nha Trang after dark and were hustled off the bus, onto a minibus and driven across town to another tourist bus. The bus on first inspection, looked completely full, luckily for us the two back rows had been fitted with extra chairs, I went in the claustrophobic bottom bunks while Djalma went on top. This was after I'd sat down in one empty chair near the front, one of the relay drivers came up, shouted 'no, No, NO, NO, NO!' and made motions with his hand that I was to proceed directly to the back of the bus. I regret how I lost my shit with this dude, but after the guy in the other bus pushing me around and a five hour bus ride, he was the last straw. I gathered up my stuff, not quickly enough because he kept screaming at me, so I shouted back 'I'm coming, I'M COMING!' and when I did get my ass up off the floor I gave him my best evil 'I-hope-cockroaches-infest-your-shrivelled-up-ball-sack-you-nasty-little-turd' look and proceeded to crawl, still fuming into the little den that held all five people squeezed in like sardines. I lay there and listened to my Ipod trying to calm down and find my Zen – I didn't really manage it and when the two American girls next to me started to have a little chat a 3am, it took what was left of my diminutive will power not to shout at them as well. I didn't, by the way, I asked nicely and they soon shut up and went to sleep. Joy!
We arrived in Hoi An just after 6am and walked from the bus station to a strip of not-that-cheap hotels where the search was on. It took us an hour and a half and the help of a moto driver to direct us to a 7 dollar room, where we had a couple of showers and some egg baguettes from across the road. Refuelled and clean again we set out to explore the town.
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