Mui Ne Beach
Mui Ne is a coastal resort town in the Binh Thuan Province of southeastern Vietnam. The town is close to the city of Phan Thiết.
After 4 days here I have surprisingly little to say about this place as my stay intentionally was only to relax and do nothing. And I belive that place is mostly about that… and surfing: regular surfing, kite surfing and windsurfing. You will see it all along the beach and many of the activities and services are based up around this. Besides that you can relax at the beach, by the many hotel pools, do spa treatments, eat good food and drink and rent a bike (regular or motor) and go for a ride. I did all but surfing 
Mui Ne has a lot of nice hotels. You will find that some of the tourists here are russian and some of the hotels are also russian owned. I stayed at the Swiss Village Resort, a 4 star hotel with two swimmingpools, bar, restaurant, private beach and spa. They had nice rooms, very good service and I had a very pleasant stay. *** please see update at end of post***
I guess the most interesting part of the stay was renting a bike and taking a couple of trips into the countryside. I rented a brand new 135cc Yamaha bike for 3 days for 50 USD. For that they included a real stupid looking helmet I will not show pictures of. The only good thing was the all the other tourists had similar or other stupid looking helmets too.
Mui Ne is located just on the edge of a desert area with both white and red sand dunes around the city. Going out of town you will pass these if you get up to the main road some two minute drive above the coastal road. It doesn’t take many minutes before you are outside of the regular tourist area and actually drive just pass peoples “living room” in the middle of nowhere. You better drive carefully and be alert because you can be just as easily be surprised by a cattle herd or two as a bus driving in the middle of the road or a group of children on their (long) way home from school. Besides that the roads are quite good and it is easy to drive here. Going out of town you will also see the beautiful beaches, the sea and the many fishing boats. You will also pass cemeteries with fallen from both world wars and the wars/invasions from both France and USA. You might get stopped by some of the locals as they want to show you some local sites or just invite you for a cup of tea. One thing is guaranteed; a smile is most often met by a smile.
As I believe some of the greates values of travelling is to experience other cultures and ways of life, I believe that even short trips outside of the tourist areas are like “fuel for the brain” to give you some new sights, insight, appreciation and maybe even some wisdom in the end.
In one day I will leave terribly early in the morning to head for Ho Chi Minh airport and catch my flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
***update 30 december***
Note to myself: in future don’t speak good about a hotel before you actually check out and leave. A lot can still happen. The last day at the hotel, I lost phone in my room, internet connection and water in the shower and sink. When contacting the reception they told me “phones and internet was working in the reception” and that the water would be fixed within ” a day or so”. When checking out at 3.30 am to catch my car to the airport they also wanted to charge me for the water I used from the minibar to wash and also accused me of stealing a towel. They only shut up when I asked them to search my bags. To top it all, I had to spend 10 minutes explaining that the car was pre-paid to the hotel. Swiss Village Resort? No, thanks! Not anymore!
More to follow…
