Mui Ne

We've spent some time relaxing and checking out some of the scenery around Mui Ne.  We tried sledding on the sand dunes and it made me actually want winter and snow to go real sledding.  That's how pathetic it was, it was more funny than fun.  We had a lovely day today at the beach, it wasn't too windy so we weren't sitting in a whirlwind of sand.  The kitesurfers were probably sad though, we didn't see any kite out today.  Mui Ne has been really nice minus the rain tonight and our ant issues yesterday. We head to Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow morning.  My only complaint is that my feet and ankles are riddled with bug bites :( I'm learning a lot of self control by not scratching :S

Nov 3 – Sand Dunes

We woke up this morning to an unpleasant surprise. Ants. They had found our stash off candied ginger and were all over the inside of the bad... booo! We found them else where in the room so we decided to change hotels. After breakfast we moved to the hotel across the street, it's on the beach side but doesn't actually have beach access, which is fine since there is access just down the street. We rented a motorcycle so we could check out the sand dunes. Our first stop were the red sand dunes. We were flagged aside and told we could park for free if we bought a drink after. Beers were a little overpriced but not too bad. We haggled for our plastic slides, they wanted 50,000d/slide we got 2 for 50,000d. A kid led us and our slides on to the sand dune to go sledding. We walked along the dunes and stopped at a specific spot which was apparently the sled run. Beau kept asking if we could try in other areas but the kid said no. He took our sleds and threw sand down the hill and then put a bunch on top of the sled. Beau sat on his sled and got pulled down the hill. It was no where near as thrilling as sledding on snow. I did a little better, able to get more speed, probably because I'm lighter. We tried a few runs and gave up. It was very underwhelming. As we walked back the kid kept asking for a tip, we gave him 6,000d but then while we were drinking our beers he and his friend kept asking to buy him a Coke. At 20,000d it was not going to happen so we just ignored him. We were very hot, sweaty and sandy; the beers went down nicely. Beau asked if there was a place to swim and we were told there was a waterfall 5min down the road. We were headed that way anyways so we set off skeptical about finding a waterfall. It wasn't the right terrain. We didn't see a waterfall but we found a spot to go swimming in the ocean. It was very nice to cool off. We were in a quiet little cul-de-sac so I got to try the motorcycle. It was fun but scary, I'll leave learning more about motorcycles till I get back to Canada. We continued on to find the white sand dunes. They were a bit harder to find but find them we did. We were offered sled rides again or to rent an ATV (which was extortionate). We just walked over and took some pictures though. We headed back into Mui Ne for a late lunch, we had our hearts set on Mexican but the prices were much too high. We found another place down the road and ordered, I got curry and Beau some shrimp with cashews. The food arrived and what did Beau see in his rice...ants. Today was not our day for ants. There were some in my rice too and also in the other portions Beau was given. Ugghhh! The food that didn't have any ants was very tasty but we weren't satisfied due to the lack of rice. We had it in our minds that we wanted to see a nice sun set, we headed to the east side of the beach to watch the sunset. It was cloudy so there wasn't much to see. We came back for a shower and headed to the night time seafood restaurants. Scores of little places pop up as the sun sets, all selling fresh seafood. We had tiger prawns and scallops. They were delicious. It cost more than a noodle bowl would but was sooo worth it. For about $10 we had 0.5kg tiger prawns, 0.5kg scallops, a plate of noodles with vegetables and a couple of beers. We are doing it again tomorrow night!! After dinner we headed back to Joe's Bar, where the live music was, and enjoyed a couple more beers while listening the keyboardist. He was very good but I think we both prefer the guitarist, he's back tomorrow night so you can guess where we'll be.

The Red Sand Dunes

Beau about to go sledding

Beau getting pulled down the hill

Me motorcycling

The White Sand Dunes

Nov 4 – Relaxing at the Beach

We had a nice leisurely start to our day complete with some mango for breakfast, Yum! We thought to try a different kind of vermicelli bowl for breakfast but instead of crab vermicelli I ended up with crab soup complete with tofu, pork sausage, and beef blood. Not quite what I expected but I guess it was okay. We sat on the beach for most of the rest of the day. Aahhh relaxing. We went swimming and watched some fisher men netting some little fishies. We had lunch on the beach and a little afternoon nap/read out of the sun. We headed back to the seafood restaurants for dinner. Tonight we had steamed and bbq clams, steamed snails, bbq crab, some veges with garlic and of course beer to drink. We had 1.6kg of sea food all for 12 dollars. It was amazing. As we finished our meal it was starting to spit, we stopped off at our room on the way to Joe's to wash the sea food off our hands and the heavens open. It poured so we waited it out inside. When the rain stopped we checked out Joe's to see if the music was happening still. It was but the dry seats were taken and it seemed it might rain again. We came back to our hotel and played some crib in the restaurant with a beer. As we were finishing up our game it started raining again, fortunately it was just a quick dash to our room. We've had a couple of power outages but a generator has kicked in so we have power again. I just hope it does go all night since we are right next to it.