Mui Ne Harbor, fishing village.
So the coconut has been pretty quite for the last ten days.
Sorry, but I've been busy being seduced by the quite charms of an unassuming little creeper of a town known as Mui Ne. Once again I begin with a promise to do better.
MUI NE:
When I first arrived in Mui Ne I was immediately struck by the surrounding sand dunes and the crisp dry dessert like air. The lack of humidity and the crystal clear blue skys were almost startling after two months traveling from one tropical place stuck in the throes of the rainy season to another. I thought; "Ummhh... not too bad, pleasant, quiet, mostly empty. I'll stay two-three, four days max and I'll be on to Na Trang. The beaches here aren't so bad, but they certainly aren't like Thailand." I am leaving Mui Ne today after ten days and it is with a heavy heart. I will sorely miss the wonderful cool dry night air here. I will miss speeding down moonlit roads on my scooter with giant sand dunes on one side of me and the ocean on the other with a million twinkling stars above me. I will miss the amazing seaside crab shacks which serve some of the best and cheapest seafood in all of Vietnam with waves crashing right beside you. I will miss the sand dunes and the bleak "Tatoonie-like" landscapes which lie just outside of the developed Mui Ne tourist strip. I will miss the sunset over the South China sea viewed from any one of many idealyic vantage points offered by Mui Ne and its beautiful surroundings. It sneaked up on me, but I really love this place.
Mui Ne is both a fishing village and a 10 or 12 km strip of developed tourist beach front which lies to the south of the fishing village. Aside from the very center of the tourist strip the developed beach front is really quite. The fishing village is total madness and a scooter ride through the town on its tiny two-lane main road is akin to a thrill ride. It is simultaneously the town people's front-yard, front-porch, children's playground, super highway to large tour buses, huge cargo trucks and construction vehicles like dump trucks, and it is also a scooter express way, ox cart lane, bicycle lane, dining/vending area, and a parking/loitering lot. I stayed at the tip north-end of the tourist strip and I could lie on the beach for hours and see no one except for the occasional fisherman passing by in his wicker cereal bowel of a boat. (see the pictures, you're understand) Its still not what the locals call high season, December-January, but I can't imagine this place ever filling up.
Along the main tourist drag kite-boarding is a really big deal, apparently Mui Ne has ideal weather and surf conditions for kite boarding but due to a late season typhoon which struck just to the north here and lingered off shore the conditions have not been so great during my stay. That has been a bit of a bummer because I was really keen to try it, its looks like the ultimate in freedom, but due to the wind and surf conditions I never made it past the intro lesson on dry land. As a consolation prize mother nature granted me three good days of surfing conditions which is a rarity in Mui Ne. One of those days was among the best days of surfing I have ever had in my life. Beautiful crisp, clean, long glassy chest to occasional head-high waves that broke with just the right amount of force. Not too hollow, not too soft and mushy. It was so good, and I was the only one in the water or on the beach. (Isolated beach north of the fishing village, and well north of the tourist drag.)
I gotta go pack and do a few things fast before my 18 hour bus to Hoi An shows so this post is going up today a little raw. Apologies in advance for all the typos, etc. The pictures are a little haphazard as well, but the really bleak, lunar looking industrial stuff is from the titanium mines 40-50 km north of Mui Ne and the muddy creek is the "Fairy Spring" I walked it the whole way to the little waterfall at the end barefooted. It is never more than ankle deep.
Enjoy
"Why am I so angry? Why do I always feel the need to electrocute people when I feel insecure?"
END
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I changed the blog settings in order to open the comment feature to any and all without a need to register, log-in, retype funny letters or do anything other than type in the white box and click the "post comment button". Just keep it clean please. My grandmother might be reading this blog.
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