Vietnam, Mui Ne: White and Red Sand Dunes

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Mui Ne (meaning “sheltered peninsula” in Vietnamese) Beach and the surrounding Binh Thuan province both have a lot to offer travellers. There are beautiful tropical beaches lined with groves of swaying palm trees, immense Saharan-style sand dunes meandering for kilometres in colours of red, yellow and white, tall mountains with bamboo rainforests and pristine waterfalls, and deep red canyons parted by twisting streams.

The TM Brothers Cafe open bus that we took from Saigon to Mui Ne, in the first part of our Vietnam travels, had comfortable seats but with the heat as hot as it was outside, we were quite hot by the time we arrived in Mui Ne just after 1pm. We were more than happy to get off the bus and try to find somewhere cool to sit and eat lunch. With a breeze blowing off the South China Sea and with there only being one main road along the beach, we managed to cool down in a small place called “Mellow”, where we enjoyed spring rolls and toasted ham, cheese and pineapple sandwiches.

Part of the “fun” of using the open bus network in Vietnam was finding accommodation when the bus dropped us off at a destination. Mui Ne was our first experience with the way the open bus journeys worked, and so we were a little hesitant to get off the bus as it stopped at various hotels along the main beach road, especially when we heard the word “resort” too many times! We ended up finding a bungalow in a place called “Xuan Uyen”. The place was nothing special and we thought it was priced too high for what we got, but it was part of the bus company’s route and we are sure that the bus company gets some sort of commission for delivering guests to the designated drop-off points along the beach.

When we arrived in Mui Ne, we weren’t sure how long we would stay as we thought we might want to spend some time on the beach. We ended up staying just one night as we didn't like the bungalow that much, and had a bad feeling about the place. To ensure that we did as much as possible before leaving the next day, we organised a tour on the same day we arrived which enabled us to leave Mui Ne the next day for our third stop in Vietnam, Nha Trang.

The tour we organised was $20 USD, too much money we think, and it was not really a tour but glorified transportation to five or six sights around the area. A driver that didn’t speak any English picked us up in a 4x4 jeep, and we started the tour by visiting and walking along the bed of Mui Ne’s “Fairy Stream” which led to a waterfall and had colourful sand banks along the sides. The water was really shallow and we walked along the stream in water for just over 1 km.

A group of kids offered to be our “tour guides” as we walked towards the waterfall, but as the water was only 2-4 inches deep at the start of the stream, we declined their offer – we knew that they would ask for money for this service, and didn’t want to disappoint them or listen to them try to guilt us into not paying them anything when we got to the end of the stream. When we explained that we would not be handing out any cash to anyone, most of the kids left to haggle money out of other tourists.

One boy in the group thought he was really clever by saying that there had been a typhoon recently and the water was very deep in places, and that we needed him to guide us away from the treacherous deep areas. We thought this was quite amusing since it was the dry season and the typhoon season wouldn’t begin until later on in the year. We told that boy to go away and he left, but still another boy walked along in front of us for most of the way, despite our objections.

In the end after we told the boy that we had no money to pay him, he reluctantly departed our company. Further downstream, there were some beautiful multi-coloured rock and sand formations, and closer to the waterfall at the end of the stream, a man tried to befriend us and guide us the remaining 50 metres to the waterfall, which we thought was really ridiculous that he even tried to do so since there was only another 50 metres left to walk. Anything for a bit of cash, we guessed!

The waterfall at the end was rather pathetic and small, probably not worth seeing for all the hassle we had to endure by walking along the stream and avoiding the wannabe tour guides. However, the colourful rock and sand banks which rose high along one side of the stream were very nice and picturesque.

Upon leaving the stream, the oldest boy put on his sad face and pouted at us for not giving him the opportunity to guide us (more likely because we didn’t give him any money). We smiled politely and said goodbye, thinking that we should have told him to stop lying about the typhoon.

Our driver was waiting for us and we hopped in the jeep to be driven to our next destination. We drove past a large fishing village with hundreds of boats anchored in the sea, all waiting to go out and catch their evening’s batch of fish. The view was very nice and overlooked not only the sea and fishing boats, but also the beach and fishing village lined along the shore.

Our excitement geared up a notch when we approached our next stop, the white sand dunes. They were a 25 minute drive from the fishing village and, along the way, our driver had to avoid many wandering cows and goats in the streets. The landscape surrounding the sand dunes was desolate and very arid and apparently the area was in the middle of a bad drought; the scenery looked a bit like what we imagine a lot of the southwest United States would look like.

The main part of the white sand dunes that has large, high drifts of sand with no vegetation at all, looked like a mini version of the Sahara desert. The expanse of land around the dunes was very sparse and still mostly made up of sand, and it stretched for miles around. When we got to the most picturesque spot in the white sand dunes, we saw the huge dunes surrounded by a large lake and a small field of pines trees.

On arriving at the white sand dunes, we were immediately greeted by a small group of little children who wanted to rent us a large thin piece of flexible plastic that we could use to slide down the steep, sandy slopes. We told them several times that we didn't want to do this, yet they continued to follow us up the dunes. Kyle gave the boy a brief lecture on “no means no” and the boy eventually left to hassle another couple of tourists who had arrived. It was very quiet and we were nearly the only people at the white dunes, and we witnessed an amazing sight. However, there was little else to do and, once we had taken our photos, we decided to leave for the next destination.

Red Canyon was back towards Mui Ne town and took about 15 minutes in the jeep. The canyon was a small cliff that has eroded away to create a beautiful and deep red craggy ridge, and we were able to walk amongst the ridges and grooves of the ridge to view the incredible appearance and colours of this natural phenomenon. There, no one hassled us trying to be a tour guide or offering a service to take our money, and it was very nice to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of the spot. We only spent 15 minutes there as it started to get dark and we still had to visit the red sand dunes before our tour finished.

When we arrived at the red sand dunes, there were many tourists, but most of them appeared to be Vietnamese people. With so many people around, we weren’t harassed when we walked up the dunes to get a view of the area from the highest point in the sand. There were many children and adults at the top of the dunes, sliding down on rented pieces of plastic, and we were probably not hassled because the majority of the plastic sledges (that’s the same as sleds to the Americans reading this) were being rented out to the local visitors - lucky us.

The red dunes were nearly as large as the white ones, and just as impressive, but we favoured the white dunes due to their lack of tourists and more peaceful atmosphere. After watching everyone having fun sliding downhill, we cooled off with a cold drink at a nearby cafe before we got back in jeep to return to our bungalows in order to grab some dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Our hunger was not satisfied as quickly as we would have wanted it to be because our jeep had a mind of its own and decided not to start up straight away. Our driver kept trying to start the jeep for 10 minutes and we panicked, thinking he was going to flood the engine or burn out the starter in the transmission. Everyone nearby was watching closely and we were all wondering whether or not we'd actually be leaving the dunes that evening; other tourists were even joking with us by waving goodbye when they left in their fully operating jeeps.

In the end, a young lady came over to the vehicle to see what the problem was, and as she climbed onto the side of the jeep to speak to the driver, the jeep's engine roared to life right in that instant. We cheered and waved goodbye to the observing locals, and were very happy to get back to Mui Ne. For the tour, we didn't think the fee of $20 was worth it, but there was no way we could have manoeuvred a motorbike on the sandy roads at some of the sights, and we also didn't fancy riding the long journeys between each sight on the back of a motorbike taxi as it wouldn’t have been as comfortable as the jeep.

We didn't end up using the beach at all in Mui Ne as we were only there for such a short time. We did look at the beach and it was nice, nothing amazing but clean and quiet. The sea was murky from the waves and didn't look inviting, so it was just as well that we didn't bother swimming or spending time on the sand.

In the evening, we visited a restaurant next door to our hotel which had a pool table and a very cute dog that sat with us whilst eating. We ordered and shared spring rolls, a curry and a noodle dish which all tasted excellent; we were very happy with our choices. We started a game of pool before dinner and ended up playing more games afterwards whilst enjoying some Vietnamese lagers, the 333 brand. It was very quiet and relaxing that evening.

The next day, we left on an open bus to travel north to the beach city of Nha Trang. We had no idea where we were going to stay but we thought we had the open bus and hotel process figured out, so we weren’t too worried. The ride was supposed to take several hours but the journey went by very quickly.