We had expected everything to pale in comparison with Villa Louise and the beautiful tranquility of Phu Tuan beach. And while nothing has so far come close to it in terms of shear beautiful-ness, Hoi An has had a very similar effect on us. If I was to pick an absolute highlight so far, I do actually thing that Hoi An would win it. As I mentioned in my previous post, Hoi An has it all, and what it lacks in tropical beachy tranquil amazingness, it more than makes up for in other ways. Food, culture, food, history and err food. Did I mention the food?
So once again, after being concerned that we may have chosen to stay there for too long, we were very sorry to leave. And if it hadn’t been the prospect of heading south to slightly cooler weather, we most likely would have stayed on. But move on we did, the relative cool of the low to mid 30’s was calling……..
We had no high hopes for Nha Trang. It was never really somewhere we had wanted to visit but it seemed to fit in quite well on our way south, so we went there with no expectations whatsoever. Apart from our expectation to meet a few Russians that is, which we certainly achieved. They are everywhere, and I mean literally everywhere – it’s quite surreal. Anyway, Russians aside, I was very pleasantly surprised by Nha Trang. It is exactly what it is, and exactly what I thought it would be. Nothing more, nothing less. A full on Asian beach resort town but one with a long, clean, soft, white sand beach and crystal clear, warm water. The beach is beautiful, even if it is pretty much full from end to end with sun loungers and semi naked Russians. It’s kept meticulously clean and tidy and is mercifully free from vendors and hawkers which was a very pleasant surprise. If you ignore the vulgar high rise hotels and the noise from the 6 lane road immediately behind the beach then it’s pretty damn nice.
The one main problem with Nha Ttrang was this road. It’s 6 lanes of intense traffic with no lights to break it up. Now if you’re aware of the finer points of being a pedestrian in SE Asia then I’m sure you can appreciate that crossing this torrent with a toddler could be slightly treacherous. We actually attempted it with the stroller on day 1. We all survived, just, but it’s something we never repeated.
From Nha Trang we flew all the way down to Saigon where the temperature that had nearly floored us upon our arrival around 5 and a half weeks prior, felt quite cool and comfortable. It was nice being back In Saigon, it somehow felt almost like a home coming, maybe it was just the fact of arriving somewhere slightly familiar again. Although this time we had gone for the cheap seats and got a hotel in the back packer area. No Colonial opulence this time round. Instead we had what is possibly Vietnam’s best childrens playground in the park outside our hotel. Who needs fading French grandeur when you can have fading lurid plastic? Anything to keep a travel weary toddler happy. For the record, I’m not actually sure if this was indeed the best playground in the country but it was the best that we had found by a country mile. Needless to say Harvey loved it, every colourful plastic inch of it and we visited it twice a day for the 2 days that we were in the city. Living the dream!
We gave the War Remnants museum a second chance this time, making sure that we timed it better, and I’m glad that we did. We managed to cover the entire display this time round and, well what can I say? There are some pretty harrowing images in there. It certainly pulls no punches in showing you the horrors of the Vietnam War and the pointless waste of life on all sides. I read a review of the museum on another site from an American who warned his countrymen not to visit whilst high as, “it turns out America did some pretty bad things”. Sound advice really.
Anyway back to less sombre things. After 2 days in the big city we headed up the coast to Mui Ne for a few days of trying to relax by the beach and pool. And here we are. We took the train from Saigon which left at 6:40am. No sleeper carriages on this train and no lovely ladies and there oddly named sons to entertain Harvey this time round. We were almost expecting the worst but it tuned out fine. After an hour or so of wriggling he drifted off to sleep sprawled out on his Mothers lap. Once again leaving me free to wander to try to find a toilet window that opened. No such luck on this train!
We had chosen to stay at the Seahorse Resort in Mui Ne, we needed a bit of resort style comfort as by this time we were all a bit tired. Pleasantly tired but still worn out. 6 weeks traveling with a toddler is hard work, harder than I had imagined to be honest. We needed a beach and a pool and the Seahorse gave us both.
Mui Ne is a strange place, it’s a place of contradictions. To begin with, it’s not actually in Mui Ne. The beach stretches around 13 kms south of the original fishing village of Mui Ne and there are hotels and resorts all along it. The main strip, as it were, is actually on a beach called Ham Tong which is around 6 km’s from the village itself. We are a further 5 or 6 km’s on from there at the far end of the beach. It bills itself as a Resort Town, in fact in some places as Vietnam’s Premier Resort Town, however it feels more like an endless strip of Asian backpacker-ness with a plethora of fancy resorts tacked onto it. Further to this, it also appears to be a beach town with no, or very little, actual beach in most places. We are lucky at this end and we have a nice wide, clean beach just in front of our hotel, but up at the main “strip” there is literally no beach to speak of. Coastal erosion seems to be a big problem in quite a few parts of Vietnam and whether or not this is caused directly by the development I don’t know, but whats for sure is that the continued development is most likely going to accelerate the problem. No one seems to heed the warnings though, for example our resort is currently in the process of building an entire new wing. Maybe they are capitalising on the diminishing business further up the strip, but it seems a bit odd to be building hotels while the beach that brings people here is vanishing. But that’s just me.
Mui Ne supposedly gets perhaps the least rainfall in the country – or so they tell us, but it has rained at least once a day for our entire stay. There you go, another contradiction. Anyway, as a result, the area is quite desert-like and there are some pretty cool Red and White sand dunes behind Mui Ne. I believe back when travelers first started coming here you could see them from the beach. Nowadays they are obscured by the hotels and are a jeep ride away. We haven’t ventured into them but we did wander up the Fairy Stream, a small fresh water stream that runs alongside the craggy edges of the dunes. It’s not the most spectacular place and I wasn’t expecting to be impressed but it’s actually pretty cool.
Although a slightly odd place, Mui Ne is quite nice and I can see why it took off like it did. Back in the 90’s or even early 2000’s it would’ve been a pretty cool spot. Parts of it still are – like our beach. Wide, clean, soft and most importantly not searingly hot by 8am. We have actually been able to relax a bit here and Harvey has been able to play in the sand. Well, I have been playing with a plastic bucket and spade and a large inflatable duck, digging holes trying get the boy interested while he wanders off to hang out with his new best friend, Mai the Pool Guy. They are inseparable, and whilst I encourage Harvey to be outgoing and make friends and we appreciate the quiet time that this gives us, I really do wish he’d at least humour his old dad and pretend to be keen to dig a hole for maybe 1 minute – that’s all I ask. At least that way I wouldn’t look so much like the creepy weird guy on the beach with a bucket and spade and an inflatable duck. While all around me the designer clad Russians rub tanning oil onto their slavic skin, look derisively over their aviators at me and turn the page in their Kindles.
Oh well, I shouldn’t care so much what the Russians think should I?
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