Mui Ne
Ok. This place was (hands down) amazing. This is good since we were told it would take two hours by bus when in reality it took five. After five hours of a crowded bus that honked its horn about every 20 seconds (not good for napping) we needed a good ending place! Mui Ne is a beach area along the South China Sea that is still very new in its development. Nam's family has been there before and had a great time. The best thing was that when ship folks asked Nam where to go, she sent most of them in the other direction (still a nice area, but far from where we were). It was great - we didn't see anyone from the ship at all!

Through the tour company we had booked the ride to and from, a night in a bungalow on the beach and a jeep (with driver) for the next day (this, plus our tours for the next two days cost a grand total of $50.) It was the off season, so we basically had the town to ourselves. I think we saw six other non-local people - not exaggerating. This place (especially in Oct) would make an awesome honeymoon location! Maybe someday... or, if you're planning one let me know - I'll give you details.

We spent the afternoon playing in the waves (which we huge) and warm. And the late afternoon reading a local paper in English while lying on the beach. It was SO relaxing. We were asked what we wanted for dinner that afternoon so that they could go get it fresh from the local market and that night at the patio restaurant right on the beach, we enjoyed the best fish and shrimp I've ever tasted! It was so good and we were literally the only 5 people in the restaurant.


Like many developing countries, there was a lot of extreme poverty in the area and it was difficult (mentally and emotionally) and very apparent when we crossed the line back and forth from the tourist area. We instantly knew when we had left the resort area of the town when we wandered around.

After talking with a number of the locals, it seems that this area is bringing a lot of money to the people and has been very good for a lot of the locals. There are a lot of Europeans that vacation here in the winter months and they are excited that more and more people are learning about it. Selfishly, I'm afraid that by the time I get back it will be all sorts of touristy, but it will still be nice. The woman that owned the resort grew attached to us and vice versa, we ended up sending her a picture of us there.


The next morning we met up with our driver and he took us on about a 45 minute ride out to the sand dunes.

At the dunes we got out of the jeep, walked through parts of them and went sand sledding.

We were all a hot mess by the end, but had a blast sledding down the dunes.
They were a lot steeper than they looked and really tough to get back up - but so worth it. After this we went to the Red Dunes and did a short hike there.
The dunes were all beautiful. It was so hot that day... thought we were all going to sweat away. We headed back to the bungalows, showered, ate some lunch and barely caught our bus back to HCM. I wouldn't have minded if we'd had to stay another day...not gonna lie.