Mui Ne sand dunes & traveling to Nha Trang

Vietnam Trip ~ Day 3

July 15, 2012

Our guidebook mentioned that, along with windsurfing, another thing Mui Ne is known for is its sand dunes. We wanted to experience the sand dunes before we moved on up the coast. On Sunday morning we asked at the front desk of our resort how we could get a tour of the dunes and the lady working at the desk called up a tour operator and got us a tour to the white and yellow sand dunes (sadly, we didn't have time to also see the red sand dunes, which were further away). She also helped us get reservations on a sleeper bus traveling from Mui Ne to the next large city up the coast, Nha Trang, for that afternoon.

(One thing we want to mention now is how wonderful it is to be a tourist in Vietnam. We didn't know this fact before we arrived in Vietnam, but we quickly learned that all the hotel managers and tour operators we met in our travels were extremely beneficial to us and other travelers in helping us get tickets on the various modes of transportation, in getting reservations for hotels in the next place we wanted to travel to, and in booking tours for us. It was so, so helpful to have this extra, free-of-charge service so that we didn't have to try to book various things with a language barrier or without knowing what we were doing or what we were getting into. Those who helped us always had great knowledge to share with us about whatever we needed assistance with. What a wonderful resource to have! It was like getting your own private tourist information center at each hotel we stayed at or with each tour operator we met. That is definitely part of the reason we had such a great trip to Vietnam, and we think this type of service should definitely be implemented here in North America.)

After we packed up our backpacks, we sat out in the open-air lobby and waited for our tour guide to arrive. When he drove up, we left Jonathan's backpacking backpack behind the front desk and hopped in the back seat of the Jeep. Our guide told us that we'd start out visiting the white sand dunes, which were farther away from Mui Ne and then come back to see the yellow sand dunes before returning to our resort to catch our bus. The drive out to the white sand dunes was very pleasant with a warm wind blowing past our open windows, and we arrived at the dunes in about 20 minutes.

Jeep and driver that took us to the dunes

Beautiful scenery on the way there 

The yellow sand dunes on the hills

Distant white sand dunes

At the base of the white sand dunes we were greeted by a group of men tending some ATVs and were told that we would have the best experience of the dunes if we rented an ATV and drove around the dunes on it. Having had experience ATVing on sand dunes on the Oregon coast, Ali agreed that it would be a good idea, and we rented an ATV for half an hour. We had fun driving up and down the tall dunes until the drive chain happened to fall off as we were trying to drive up a dune. One of the ATV caretakers soon came to help us and we were off again for the rest of our rental time. Flexible plastic sheets were provided at the top of one dune to use to sled down the on the sand. We tried them out, but they didn't work quite as well as sledding on real snow. :) We were very glad for our waterproof camera at these dunes, which withstood the sand much better than Jonathan's DSLR would have.

We rented an ATV for a half hour to explore the dunes a bit (We had to be careful not to burn our legs on the hot exhaust)

Quite a high dune

Dune riding!

At one point Jonathan managed to drop the chain somehow - we had to wait for someone to help us get it back on.

At one place, there were makeshift sleds to slide down the steep slope with

Ali gives it a go

Our half hour of ATV rental time was soon up and we drove back to the parking lot to rejoin our tour guide, who quickly got us into the Jeep for our ride back toward Mui Ne and the yellow sand dunes. We stopped at a roadside store along the way for a bathroom break and to get a couple extra water bottles. Then we continued to the dunes. At the yellow dunes there were no options for ATVing, which was fine with us - one rental for the day was enough. We walked up and down the dunes, stopping for pictures whenever we felt like it. We had a fun time, except for the unfortunate event when, near the end of our time there, Jonathan decided to slide down one dune on his feet and lost one of his flip flops in the sand. We dug around as deep as we could reach for a few minutes without finding it and finally had to leave with Jonathan wearing just one flip flop. On our drive back to our resort our tour guide stopped at a sandal store for Jonathan to find another pair, but none of them fit his feet!

At the second dunes area - the sand here was more yellow

Very hot!

Water! Please water!

Ali making a sand angel

"See!"

Sandy expanse

Right before losing one flip flop in the dune

When we got back to our resort, we waited in the lobby for about half an hour before our bus showed up. Another nice thing about Vietnam is how the buses will just stop by the various hotels to pick up passengers so you don't have to find a way to the bus station if you're staying far away. We put the backpacking backpack in the storage compartment under the bus, then boarded and found two seats beside each other at the very back of the bus. Since it was a sleeper bus, we had seats that lay back, giving us more room to stretch out. Ali was pretty comfy, but poor Jonathan was a bit too long to be completely comfortable. We spent the 5-hour bus ride reading and peeking out the curtained window every once in a while to view the scenery. The view, beside the coast and up through verdant green hills, was gorgeous, but it was hard to capture the beauty through our dirt-flecked windows. During the trip, we made a couple stops for bathroom breaks and food purchases. At one stop we were surprised to see large fried spiders on sticks. We opted for a box of crackers instead... It was dark and pretty late by the time we arrived in Nha Trang. As we disembarked, we found a number of taxis and motorcycle taxis waiting for the passengers who might need their services. We found a free taxi and told the driver the name of a hotel we'd decided on during our bus trip, and he delivered us there within a few minutes, after a stop at an ATM to replenish our supply of Vietnamese dong. At the hotel we booked a room for a couple nights and then rode the elevator up several floors, got settled into our new quarters, and fell asleep soon after.

Back at the resort

Waiting

Our last three Jeju chocolates! We finally decided to eat them...

Sleeper bus

Not so comfortable for Jonathan (Ali's feet not pictured...)

Attempted scenery shot out the window

Next up: Nha Trang & snorkeling tour

Sabbath in Mui Ne

Vietnam Trip ~ Day 2

July 14, 2012

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We learned a lot about Vietnam on the 6-hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City to Mui Ne. Specifically, we learned a lot about Vietnamese transportation. There are two key words that describe the transportation situation in Vietnam: motorcycles (or scooters) and slow. Google Maps says that it only takes 4 hours and 15 minutes to make the trip. Our trip took a lot longer due to the abundance of motorcycles zipping all over the road and due to the fact that apparently Vietnamese vehicles can't travel faster than maybe 40mph. Seriously. It is slow going.

When we arrived in Mui Ne on Friday evening it was already dark. Our bus dropped off passengers at their hotels or resorts, if they already had reservations. Thanks to our very helpful hotel owner in Ho Chi Minh City, we did have a reservation in Mui Ne and were dropped off right in front of our resort gates. We checked in, were shown to our room, and went to bed soon after.

On Saturday morning, July 14, we woke up to warm sunshine glowing through the lightweight fabric curtains and the sound of ocean waves rolling unto a nearby beach. We got up and went out to the hotel restaurant - really just a large structure of poles holding up a thatched roof in the middle of the resort grounds - and ordered breakfast that was added to our room tab. After a simple, but delicious meal (everything tastes better when you're eating in the open air), we put on sunscreen and then lounged on some beach chairs in a sandy area at the edge of a retaining wall overlooking the ocean and read a bit. It was very relaxing, and we alternated between the beach chairs out in the sun and the ones under the thatched umbrellas for some shade when the sun got too hot.

Neat washcloth designs on our bed

Ali tries out the tiny vanity

Eating area at our "resort"

The little bungalow were we stayed

Local catch of the day coming in

Condiments for our breakfast

Relaxing by the sea

Ali relaxes under the umbrella - we really liked this other bungalow

Looking down the shoreline

Yes, that's trash... Not the cleanest beaches ever.

These washtub-style crafts are rather popular

After relaxing in the sun for a while, we decided it was time to explore the town. We went back to our room, doused ourselves with sunscreen, and headed out. We had learned from our guidebook that Mui Ne was a popular stop along the coastal travel route, especially with windsurfers. The town sits along a large bay and there is a lot of wind in the area, making it the perfect place for windsurfers to play in the water. We wanted to watch the windsurfers, so we left the hotel property and walked along the road heading toward the main area of Mui Ne. The day was very hot and sunny and we soon wished that we had brought our water bottles along with us. As we got closer to downtown Mui Ne, we saw the ocean filled with windsurfers in the small breaks between business and hotel properties. But no matter how far we walked, we couldn't seem to find an open area or public beach access so we could get out to the beach to watch with an unhindered view. All the hotels and businesses had signs out front saying that only patrons could enter their properties and have access to the beach. Finally, after quite awhile of walking, we decided that we probably wouldn't be able to get to any beaches from the road, so we decided to walk back to our hotel and get to the beach from there and then walk along the beach to see the windsurfers. One notable store we passed both ways was an open-air seafood and snake restaurant. Ali was very trepidatious when walking by this area. She did not want to meet a snake, nor see one being butchered.

Many houses are tall and narrow like this with plain, windowless sides.
We think this is due to properties being very narrow leading to close neighbors.

A rather ornate building

Tropical - A rocky beach we found along our walk

Vietnamese fishing boat

Nearby, there were many windsurfers out in the bay

Another view down the coast (Note the yellow sand dunes in the hills - we'll talk about them in the next post)

Intense cow

Roadside gas stand

The walk back seemed longer than it had on the way there (as it usually does...) and we were very glad to see our hotel sign and get back to our room to have a nice long drink of water. Then we reapplied the sunscreen and headed out again. We walked along the ocean in one direction, but found the experience to be less than pleasant. It was not a very clean beach and garbage dotted the sand and floated out in the waves. Several times we saw small dead fish or bones lying on the shore and when we came across a large half-rotted rat, I was ready to be done with our beach walk. It just was not restful and relaxing like we'd hoped. So, we abandoned our hopes of sitting on a clean beach and watching the windsurfers, and we turned around and headed back to our hotel once again. It was getting to be dusk by then anyway. When we got back we sat on the edge of the retaining wall, with the relaxing sound of waves in the background, and sang some hymns together to end the Sabbath. After our worship time, we had supper at the hotel restaurant and then asked at the front desk where we could find an internet cafe. A couple other people at our hotel also wanted to use one, so once we were given the directions we all went together and found it a few stores down the road. Later, when we came back to our hotel, we spent some time reading in our room and figuring out where to travel to next. Then it was time for bed and we fell asleep to the rhythm of ocean waves.

The entrance to our little resort

Sunset on the beach

Next up: Mui Ne sand dunes

Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam Trip ~ Day 1

July 12 & 13, 2012

Our Vietnam trip technically started on Thursday afternoon with our take-off from Incheon International Airport on the west coast of South Korea. As soon as our wheels left the ground, we were out over the ocean and heading further west. Our first flight, to Shanghai, took two hours. The flight was normal, although the last ten minutes or so were a little frightening for me since the stewardesses suddenly began to rush up and down the aisle telling passengers brusquely in Mandarin (I think) and English to close their window shades. Having never been told to do that in a plane except for during long trans-continental flights, I was a little nervous that something was going wrong with the plane and the crew didn't want us to see what was happening outside the aircraft. My fears were in vain, though, thankfully, and we landed with no obvious difficulties. After all us passengers had disembarked, ridden the bus to the terminal, and had been funneled through quite a few long empty hallways, we lined up to have officials look at our passports. Then those staying in China or taking national flights were sent one direction while those of us flying internationally went another. The international terminal was a very long, long room and our gate was rather near the end. We killed our couple hours of layover time by reading and talking. Our flight to Ho Chi Minh City was delayed by another hour or so, but finally we were sent to another gate and allowed to board our flight. (Just a tip at this point: if you are ever tempted to fly China Eastern Airways because of a low-priced ticket, I'd recommend just passing up the cheap price and going with a slightly pricier airline. Every single one of our four flights on CEA were delayed, most by an hour or more and one by a hefty four hours!)

The international terminal in the Shanghai airport

The next plane we'd take, from Shanghai to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Sunset from the terminal

After another two hour flight, we had arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, right down at the south end of Vietnam. We had already booked a hotel for the night and asked for a pick-up, so once we cleared customs (very easy with the help of our Vietnam visas), and picked up Jonathan's large backpacking backpack from the luggage carousel, we walked outside into the warm midnight air. We found our driver right away and he put our two backpacks in the trunk while we got in the backseat. The drive took about 15 or 20 minutes and was mostly along quite deserted streets. When we arrived, the driver gave us our bags and then led us to our hotel where we found it barred and locked for the night. The driver called the owner on his cellphone while simultaneously banging on the metal garage-style door until the owner finally raised the large metal door and unlocked the front door for us to enter. The driver left and the owner told us that there had been a mistake and they didn't have an extra room for us, despite an e-mail reply from them saying that we had a room booked. "No problem, though," the man said, "you can stay at my cousin's hotel across the street." He made a call on his cellphone and then led us across the very narrow street. (The driver had had to park at the end of the street because the only motorized vehicles that could make it down the street were motorbikes.) The owner of the other hotel met us, the other owner bid us goodnight - while letting us know that should we need a hotel room for any subsequent night, we should definitely come stay at his hotel. This owner told us that all his one-bed rooms were taken, so we accepted the slightly higher price for a two-bed room (what other option did we have??), and quickly paid for it and followed the owner up three flights of narrow winding stairs to our room for the night. It was around 1 a.m. local time by the time we were finally in our room and able to go to sleep.

View of the street from our window

Looking the other direction

Jonathan's pack with pack cover in case of a sudden downpour

Our nice, clean-looking room

Using the sole computer in the lobby

The next morning, Friday, we woke up to sounds of people walking and talking and cycling and motorbiking on the street below our window, and the louder sounds of a large city on the nearby streets just around the corner. After refreshing showers, we hit the streets to start experiencing Vietnam. We soon realized we were in a touristy area and easily found many restaurants to choose from on the street just around the corner from our hotel. We quickly learned that Vietnamese restaurants place their menus right outside their restaurants so passersby can glance through them as they walk down the street. They also employ people to stand outside near the menus to encourage customers to come eat in their restaurant. After passing by a few of these restaurant hawkers, we finally let one of them encourage us into a small cement-walled restaurant with an open front. A few other white tourists were enjoying breakfast inside, so we decided it looked like a good place to eat. We were ready to order just a few minutes after entering, and our food came quickly and tasted great. We enjoyed watching Vietnamese life passing by on the street out front. The best part of the experience, though, came with our bill. "Wow, food is cheap here!" I exclaimed as I glanced at the handwritten tab. (I must say, neither Jonathan nor I had done too much research about traveling in Vietnam before arriving. Doing the final duties for our jobs and then traveling to Jeju with my parents and brother kept us from spending too much time researching, so we arrived in Vietnam without too much knowledge or too many set plans. Actually, most of what we learned about the country before we arrived came from reading the Vietnam section of our Lonely Planet Southeast Asia guidebook while sitting in the Shanghai airport...) After breakfast, we explored the nearby streets and ended up strolling around the block. We knew before arriving in Vietnam that motorbikes were a very important mode of transportation in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries, and boy were they ever!

Cars take second place

More on traffic and crossing streets in Vietnam later...

A church building we came upon in our wanderings

When we got back to our hotel we used the computer in the lobby to check our e-mail and then did a little bit of planning for the next few days. Since it was Friday, we wanted to be somewhere a little more restful for Sabbath so we looked for the next interesting city that looked like a nice relaxing place. Mui Ne was the next city up the coast that sounded like an interesting place to visit, so the hotel owner called around to a few places, trying to find us bus or train tickets there. He ended up finding us tickets on a bus that left in about an hour. He also called a good hotel in Mui Ne to get us a room. The bus company's office was just around the corner, so he took us there and we got the tickets and then went to a nearby shop a few stores down to grab some food for the road. After a very warm wait in the stuffy office, the bus finally arrived and we boarded, then waited a bit longer until leaving time. While waiting we watched a group of young men playing soccer on the sidewalk beside the bus. Before too long, though, we left and started the long drive north to Mui Ne (6ish hours). We got there after dark and got dropped off right in front of our hotel. We checked in to the hotel and were shown to our room. We were pretty tired and went to sleep soon after arriving.

Taking a break in their sidewalk soccer game

Views from the bus window

Not trash - someone's business

Lovely water!

Next up: Mui Ne