Mui Ne

After the fairly hectic Saigon, we headed north-east and along the coast to Mui Ne, which is a fairly quiet little town about 4 hours by bus from Saigon itself. 

We had a very pleasant hotel with a lovely pool right on the seafront.  It felt more like a "proper holiday" than a "backpacking experience" and the majority of the fairly spartan hostels that we stayed in during our New Zealand trip, which was nice!  There wasn't an awful lot going-on in Mui Ne itself, although we did take a trip out to the White Sand Dunes - which would have been great had it not for Jeremy losing his sunglasses and spending his time having to negotiate them back from the "delightful little children" that were "looking after them" for him!  It cost about 3 pounds to get them back eventually! 

We didn't manage to slide down the pretty big dunes because we ran-out of time however it was probably a blessing as it was extremely hot in the afternoon sun.

  People wait by the dunes for hours to catch the wind whipping-up the sand to give a great photograph.  The dunes themselves were very picturesque, very much like the Te Paki dunes we saw in the Northland of New Zealand, only smaller.  Also, it is great for people that are interested in animal cruelty, as the poor monkey chained-up next to the cafe (that had it there purely so it could sell nuts to tourists at inflated prices) testified to that........... Anyone that bought nuts from the cafe to feed the monkey are as bad as those that have chained it up in the first place.

The food in Vietnam has been great. Probably the best "national" cuisine that we have had on our travels so far (along with Peru).