Sigh - gone! (18 - 19 March 2010)

Today I leave Mui Ne for the long five hour drive back to Saigon. It’s still only 200kms ad it still takes five whole long hours - just doesn’t seem right! I’d recommend it as a place to stay if you want the beach, but not if you want “real Vietnam”, also it’s great for kitesurfing! The Sailing Club is also a good place to stay, great service, good rooms but the pool and beach area are a little on the small side, so you can feel a bit crowded if it’s busy. But the restaurant is really good, fusion food and the best breakfasts ever. The staff is also really nice and very helpful.
But back to the journey, on the way we stop for a loo break at a garage/cafe. You have to take your own shoes off before entering the loos and put on a pair of their white plastic sandals – not my favourite, having to wear shoes that thousands have worn before, but I thought that perhaps it was a good sign – if they went to this trouble for hygiene so they only had clean shoes on their floor, I was in for a clean loo – sadly my logic was wrong – obviously all hygiene efforts went into the sandals and not into the loos themselves....

This time in Saigon I decide to stay in the centre – I have stayed in the backpackers’ district, a local area and now right in the centre on the river. It’s here that you realise the city is changing. There are some really tall buildings going up and some very chic housing developments on the river. From the roof terrace of where I am staying I look down into a huge ”ground zero” like hole where the foundation are going in for another skyscraper. But the city here is still manic – still loads of motorbikes but also more cars, limos, taxis and tourists. Also the quotient of designer shops is on the up, another sign of a fast developing city. I have booked myself into the Saigon Grand Hotel, one of the original colonial hotels, where I am upgraded to the old wing. A beautiful room with dark wood original parquet floors, an ante room with huge chandelier before you go into your room, and large shuttered windows looking out onto the street. Given the city’s past, I guess this room could throw up some historical secrets. I nip into Jasper’s across the road from the hotel for dinner, and have the most un-Vietnamese dinner imaginable – St Patrick’s Day Sheperd’s Pie and cabbage – very nice it was too! The only thing Vietnamese about it was the large dish of honey that came with it – still not sure what I was supposed to do with it! But the young waitress, a part time student really wanted to practice her English, so we chatted for a while. Trying to explain what I did in my working life proved difficult – until I remembered my old Vietnamese – and remembered that Gucci was always “Goosey” – and like “why why” it worked!

But the next morning it was time to move on – and with a sigh, I say goodbye to Saigon for this time. A hotel limo (I only paid for the hotel minibus – honest....) takes me through the Saigon rush hour and we weave through the river of bikes. The airport is quite flash – and apart from a power cut (little worrying at an airport) it reminded me of Heathrow T5 but on a smaller scale.

Be careful what you wish for.... (Tuesday 9 March 2010)

...as the saying goes and it proves to be true.  I recently made the mistake of telling you about the lovely calm sea and lack of wind that is a trademark of these parts, and today I wake up to wild weather! An early morning walk on the beach proves to be a cheap exfoliating beauty treatment that even the myriad local “spas” would be hard to match. So today I explore a bit and finally I have got the hang of the geography round here. Though this is called Mui Ne, it is actually a long stretch of beach around 30kms with Mui Ne fishing village one end and Phan Thiet, the larger town at the other. I appear to be right in the middle – a good place to be as this is where the highest concentration of little stalls and restaurants is.

Mui Ne sounded like it might be a bit like Hoi An as it has a little fishing harbour. With thoughts of a “Cargo Cafe” with banana Krispies and a latte I make my way. The fact that there are no hotels in Mui Ne itself and it is called a fishing village should really have given me a clue. I now realise the reason for no little hotels and cafes – it is exactly what it says – a stinky (but charming...) village dedicated to fishing and then drying some of the said fish. Not a place to linger and enjoy a banana krispie.. I stop at the first harbour and make my way down the steep white concrete stairs that almost blind you in the white sunlight. The beach under your feet feels as though it is tiled as there are many years’ worth of broken shells littering it. Large dead starfish are left to rot.

And other litter too, washed up by the tide – the lonely flipflops – I still think there’s a global business to be had to partner these up on beaches around the world – perhaps I’ll design it and call it “e flip matchmaker”... and of course the mountains of plastic bags. I still get odd looks when I buy something at the little stalls and refuse the bag – perhaps they should start charging like M&S to discourage others...

The beach is also littered with coracles, those little round woven boats that Ant and I had such fun in on our eco fishing tour in Hoi An – perhaps I can give them some training.... And as it’s the middle of the day, the hundreds of blues fishing boats are amassed in the harbour like some armada, ready and waiting to go out as soon as the sun starts to drop. At night you can see them on the horizon in their hundreds all lit up like fairy lights on the horizon – the only way you can tell where the end of the bay is and the boats begin is the colour of the lights. On land they are yellow, on the sea they are white. Next stop is the village harbour. The village is built on a small hill rising up from the harbour. The streets are tiny and the little higgledepiggldly houses crowd each other. As in most other places in Vietnam, life is lived in the open. The shutters into the houses are open and I peek at wooden furniture, tiled walls, the tv (always on...) and the small shrines twinkling away. The only large structure to be seen is the huge, white Christian church. The kids play around in the dust and the women are cooking or eating. The harbour itself is even smellier than the last one and fishermen shelter under palm thatch mending their nets and chatting away. Chickens and pigs scrabble in the dirt. Not sure if these are Vietnamese pot bellied pigs or not – but I’m sure they are destined for one pot or another – last night I tried “paddyfield pork”, a local dish and it was very good. But my nose could take neither the smell nor the disappointment of lack of cafes and shops so I move on.

 This part of the coast is famous for its sand dunes – you have a choice of red, yellow or white. I decide to try the white as they are nearest – if they really grab my attention, I can move on to the other colours another day. They don’t. The white sand dunes look rather yellow to me... and are, well big sand dunes at the back of the village. The big thrill is to pay the kids who crowd around you as soon as you arrive a few thousand dong to borrow their plastic sheets which are used as sleds. From what I could see, the slide down ends on the road where the usual motorbikes and buses are whizzing along at their usual speed.... They are a little like the dunes in Dubai where you can go wadi bashing, but on a rather smaller scale... instead of a glam 4WD you get a plastic sheet... But the wind was doing its exfoliation job again, and was wiping out my footprints before I had even lifted up my foot. I’m told they can be spectacular at dusk and make great photos – you will just have to use your imagination!

On the way back I stop off at a rather trendy bar (actually the only trendy bar...) I have seen called Sankara Beach Club and Restaurant – well you have to keep your liquid intake up in this climate. It’s really lovely with a little blue (if a little cloudy) pool and surrounded with airy tents and that lovely modern cube shaped beach furniture. The other benefit (apart from providing the much needed liquid) is that it has a slightly sheltered view of the beach and the kite surfers. There seem to be hundreds out there all moving over the rough sea at a rate of knots and leaping really high into the air with their acrobatic twists and turns – better than the telly! There are a couple of wind surfers out there too – but that looks sooooo last year!