Leaving Saigon was an experience in iself! In Vietnam they have one (yes just one!) highway up the coast and with it being 'Tet' (New Year Holiday) in Vietnam, every bugger was on the road with us going home! Needless to say, like London we sat for about 2 hours not moving in a traffic jam and then once moving slowly, tried to tackle roundabouts with about 30 other buses, 40 mopeds, about 10bikes with kids on and a few old ladies walking....... my god, is all that came to mind, I am not sure how we didn't kill anyone or crash ourselves! Seeing the local buses made us glad we had gone on a slightly more organised affair- they have about 8 people to two seats and have bikes, luggage, dogs, you name it hanging off the top.........many will be sat on there for 20 hours plus to get home.. mind blowing!

 

Anyway we headed up the coast to a small fishing village called Mui Ne which was very chilled and a far cry from Saigon - just what we needed! It had a beautiful white sand beach of 6km and the wind was amazing which meant that the place was mad with wind surfers, kite surfers etc.. going a heck of a speed over the waves! (Bruce you would have loved it!). Mui Ne is an up and coming style holiday area too so there are really chilled resorts along the coast which anyone can go into. We ended up staying here for about 3 days to get some wind swept R&R! We went to this amazing place called the Sailing Club resort which we named our own BanTree (just for you both Sasha and Andrew!) as it was amazing, chilled on the beach, beautiful setting, bungalow just 25 pounds a night (!), massages for 5 pounds and nobody there...result! We managed to learn some Vietnamese too from the lady at the beach bar..

 

At Mui Ne, its not all beach -they are famous for their incredible red and white sand dunes! We decided to get a Jeep to explore them and started off by visiting the fishing village which was amazing to see the small round boats that the Vietnamese use to fish for a daily living....










We then went to see what is called the 'Fairy Stream' which is basically a small canyon where you can walk up the river and see the white and red sand cliffs and walk in the warm water.....on leaving the jeep a small boy of about 12 grabbed us & basically became our guide up the stream - I tried to tell him he should be at school!(theres the teacher in me!) but he took no notice!

The formations that the sand made were pretty cool (Alum Bay - IOW eat your heart out!) to say the least and it was interesting also to see the rival gangs of children that fight to take tourists - at what point I thought we were in for a fight but our 12 year old said he would fight themfor us! There was also a lady cleaning banama leaves in the water which was cool to see..











From there we went to something called Red Canyon (bit like the Grand Canyon I suppose but tiny!).










Then we headed to the inafamous white sand dunes which were just incredible, especially against the blue sky! They went on for miles and you really felt like you had suddenly hit the dessert to say the least! It really hit home the constrast in sights we have seen in just 6 weeks.......





Ads and I managed to climb to the peak, then attempted to sand surf down which basically meant you moved abit of a way and ate a gallon of sand! It was fun though and I am sure I travelled the furthest....although Ads will argue otherwise!



























Finally on the way back we stopped to see the contrasting Red Sand Dunes of the area



























To end we then ended up watching a beautiful sunset with a beer and a cup of tea on the beach! A fantastic end to a very chilled few days to set us up to head inland to the mountains and the cold!!