Lil' Ol' Dune Buggy

Trudging up a dune
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The 5 hour ride to Mui Ne went quickly and we were in a quiet beach town albeit stuck in the tourist area (no local restaurants or shops!!). Xang Uyen provided us with a $6 room, 20m form the beach. There isn't much to do here except enjoy the beach. Kite surfing and windsurfing are popular but at $50 an hour for lessons we decided our pockets couldn't handle it. The other thing is to get a tour and see the sand dunes. Coco Cafe sorted us out with our tour: a jeep and guide and us two. Perfect.

And sliding down :-D
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Up at 4am we were picked up by our guide Phuong and taken to the White Sand dunes for sunrise. The dunes are stunning. We hadn't seen any like these before and the provided excellent photo material. Apart from viewing the scenery, we got to slide down the dunes. Sean had a great time climbing up and sliding down enormous dunes. The plastic boards cost D10,000 and it;s a short walk to the decent sized dunes.

...fishing village was an olfactory experience...

Dunes, dunes everywhere...
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Phuong took us to the Red Canyon and it was spectacular against the deep blue sky. Not huge but a definite highlight of Mui Ne. If you have seen the Pinnacles near Welly, then colour them red and voila, the Red Canyon. The fishing village was an olfactory experience and made you question ordering fish at dinner, while the Yellow Dunes just plain sucked (swarming with people).

We got Phuong to take us to a local noodle stall and grabbed a cup of coffee at a local cafe. This turned out to be the best cuppa in our Vietnamese trip. It was a cool experience; sitting back in beach chairs while the coffee slowly comes out of the dripper perched on top of your glass. The Fairy Stream was ok - we didn't go to the source but it was pretty. Still, we can't figure out why it got it's name. Unfortunately our experience was marred by a fish sauce factory on the way to and from the stream.

Adrienne giving it a go down a dune
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We caught up with Anna and found a great restaurant that delivered value for money - the aptly named Popular Restaurant! After an expensive call with Mamma Smart we decided it was time to put credit on our Skype account, well actually Jane paid for it...

We left the next day for Dalat but only after waking up at 6am, only to be told that our bus was only going to leave at 1:30pm!!!