Surfin' VNM

Learning how to windsurf was on the to do list for today. We got up and headed straight over to Jibe's Surf shop next door. After a coffee I was somewhat in a position to compute all the information of the theoretical lesson. Then we headed further down the beach to a spot where the wind was more suited for our first tries. After a few instructions and practice moves on the beach we finally moved the large beginner boards into the sea.

Getting up on the board and into T-position was not too bad. We even were able to catch some wind and ride straight for a while.

The hard part was to turn... either a jibe (downwind turn) or a tack (upwind turn) were not easy. We focussed on practising the tack as this one would not send us that far downwind (and because it is a little harder than the jibe).

Practice, practice and practice. Matt, our instructor did a good job pointing out our mistakes. He better be for what we paid for the lessons (55$ per h per person).

After about two hours (1 1/2 in the sea) we kind of started to get it. Of course there is still plenty of practice required now to get anywhere near a place where we can do a somewhat graceful turn, but we can practice this on our own time now, by just renting the gear.

Cool, first lesson in windsurfing... check!

We freshened up and packed our bags and prepared to check out. Unfortunately we did not get our second night refunded. So another 10 $ per person down the drain.

While we had some lunch across the road at Cocos, we let our trunks and towels dry in the sun and then waited for the bus to Hoi An.

It was actually two buses: One from Mui Ne to Na Thrang, where we supposedly could get some dinner and then a night bus from there to Hoi An, where we would arrive at 7 am.
At least we would save a night in a Hostel.

The Bus to Na Thrang was a little late but compensated for this with being a bus from the future. Instead of four seats in a row we had three beds (seats that almost fully reclined) on two floors. Wifi was working perfectly and when it got dark the inside was illuminated with LEDs in different colour.
The A/C was not turned up to 16 degrees either. A very comfortable ride.

When we arrived at Na Thrang, our dinner break we hoped for was not possible as we had built up quite a delay and some guy from the bus company pulled us by our arms out of the bus and dragged us to the next Bus that left as soon as we stepped on it to Hoi An.

We have had no food since lunchtime and no snacks in the bag. It was 8pm now and we were worried we won't get any food until we arrived in Hoi An the next morning.

We had better seats however because we got the very last row of beds. Basti and I shared three fully reclinable seats.

I thought sleeping would not be a problem, and since there was not much else to do I tried, but had to find out that the road was extremely bumpy (they are still improving the main north-south connection from Hanoi to Saigon and every 3 km there is a construction site with dirt tracks around it).

So no sleep for a while, until I finally dozed off. About 5 minutes (that's how it felt at least) later the bus driver stopped for dinner.

We filled up on Rice and fried things (I believe it was chicken) and then rode north, through the night.

Beach Party Vietnam

I was pretty excited to embark on another great railway journey again. Althought it was not going to be a very long one it was my first in Vietnam.

We got up early, which wasn't a problem since we got an early night (ohhh... we really seem to be getting old...).

After a short taxi ride and a coffee we boarded our train.

The Saigon Train Station (Sai Gon Ga) consisted of just 3 platforms with our train waiting at one of them. It was a pretty new looking (for southeast asia) carriage, with A/C and TVs in it. Our assigned seats were in the lower floor of the only double floor carriage on the train.

Leaving the station we rolled on a single track through all kinds of neighbourhoods of Saigon, with houses and shacks built all the way to the track. We could see the families getting ready for work, school, making breakfast and feeding the chickens in the yard.

The train would really not set a new speed record but the ride was very enjoyable.

When we arrived at the Beach side resort town of Mui Ne we had to take a taxi to the beach front. To save costs we shared a large van with a couple that visited the place for it's kite surfing scene.
We quickly found a nice place to stay right on the sea front (there is only one road along the shore, really) called Backpackers Resort that only charged 20 $ for a double room and had palm trees and even a little pool. We booked it for two nights because it looked so nice.

It felt like it should be afternoon but it was just about lunch time, so we went across the road and got some lunch at Coco's Cafe.

After a nice curry our room was ready to move in to and the next thing to do was to take a walk along the beach and find a place to rent surf boards.

As it turns out the Great Lonely Planet Guide did not tell us that this town was suitable for surfing (without kite or sail) during certain times of the year. And No: this was not the time of the year because the surf is not right.

So we thought we may as well give some other form of surfing a try. Kitesurfing is not really possible to pick up in a day or two, so we settled on windsurfing and booked a lesson for the next morning when the wind should be better.

After a quick swim in the sea ( to be honest I don't even know what this part of the sea is called) we reviewed our schedule of going up to Hanoi and worked out that we were going to be tight on time if we wanted to see everything on our list. We decided to cut our stay in Mui Ne short in order to spend some time in Hoi An and Hue before going to Ha Long Bay and Hanoi.

This meant that we had to do all the things we wanted to do in Mui Ne now.

It was only 1pm now and we just got two seats for a little excursion in the afternoon to some sights around Mui Ne.

First we took a Jeep to the Fairy Stream, which was a little creak that carried loads of silt and flows through sand dunes. It really looked nice and unlike anything I've seen before. It was a pleasant surprise and even the youth of the town made a business out of it by randomly charging 5000 Dong (25 cent) entrance to just a public area. We probably could have just walked on without paying but they set it up quite well and somehow deserved the quarter.

After this we passed by another attraction of our tour. A view of a fishing village. There were plenty of boats in the bay but I wouldn't really call it an attraction. I guess the tour operator added to make the list longer. So we took a picture and drove on to the White sand dunes.

The White dunes were a great place. Surrounded by water and lush green fields these large dunes really looked out of place.

We had great fun climbing them with our nice group that we got to know at the last two attractions and had great craic jumping off them and taking pics.

On the way back we stopped at some red sand dunes where we were suppose to witness the sunset, but it wasn't a day for the perfect sunset, so we headed back to the hostel.

After a quick shower to wash the sand out of our ears we met up with our newly acquired friends for some dinner and a drink.

Everyone was pretty wrecked after a couple of minutes in the bean bags on the beach so we headed back to the hostel along the sandy beach to get some sleep.

Andi the Tour Guide

This morning, after the obligatory bowl of Pho and a glass of coffee we followed the walking tour route in the opposite direction. First major stop was the place where the Buddhist monk set himself on fire in 1963, in the middle of a street to protest against the inequality that was happening in Vietnam at the time. The Christian minority (about 10% of the population) had many more rights and tax benefits than the vast Buddhist Majority.

Since all protests didn't help and the government used harsh force to suppress the Buddhists, this monk decided to set a sign, in which he certainly succeeded because once the photos of this event went around the world, the white house and other governments put pressure on the Vietnames government of the time to implement changes.

After this impressive stop we continued to a the Jade emperor palace of which we heard good things. When we arrived it was mainly a bit of run down Buddhist temple. Not bad but not amazing either.

The walk there and back was somewhat rewarding though because we could really take in this busy city with all it's scooters and street vendors.

We passed by the General Post Office (designed by Monsieur Eiffel) and walked over to the Presidential palace which we visited and used as a shelter when the rain came down again in the afternoon.

This was going to be our last evening in Saigon and we wanted to check out the Cholon which is the other village that grew together with Saigon logn time ago to form Saigon and now Ho Chi Minh City.

Located in Cholon is Chinatown and a Big Market (which is called "Big Market"), so we took a taxi there only to find out the market was closed. So we thought we will find ourselves a nice Chinese Restaurant and have some Duck or something, but this also kind of failed as there were mainly shops around that sold house hold goods.

I think if we had looked around more we would probably have found something nice but we were pretty hungry and settled for a local corner shop with very average food. Somehow the will was gone for the evening and we headed back to the hostel and called it an early night.

I did some catch up on the blog while Basti did some catch up on sleep to battle his jet lag.