Steve: So, here we are
in Mui Ne (pronounced Moo Nay), a very pretty little strip of hotels
and restaurants along one of the better beaches in southern Vietnam.
I can’t call this a beach community as there isn’t one. Community, that is; the beach is definitely there! The town
of Mui Ne is at the north end, and the city of Phan Thiet is at the
south end, and us tourists all hang out in the strip in between.
Today that’s Deb and me and about 50% of western Russia. This
place is at least 80% Russian, and the Phan Thiet newspaper refers to
it as ‘little Moscow’. We liked it enough when we showed up to
extend our hotel stay for an extra three weeks, so we’re here for
24 days in total. About 90% of this place is one street which holds
all the hotels and restaurants and shops, there are lots of palm
trees and once you set your personal filter to screen out the taxi
and moto drivers and the restaurant touts, it’s very nice. 28-31
degrees during the day, but in the afternoon there’s always a brisk
wind to make things feel cooler. In the evening it plummets all the
way down to 23-24, so sitting out in the evening is very pleasant.
Peanut vendor bundled up against the morning cold (25
deg)
Our hotel is about 300
metres up one of the very few side-streets (about 10’ wide) and is
perched on a series of sand dunes, giving us an excellent panorama of
the town and the ocean, and at night we can see the lights of the
squid fleet filling the horizon. Very romantic if you’re not a
squid. We have a pretty good room on the second floor overlooking a
small pool, and there’s a big pool at the excellent restaurant
which we can use as well. Not bad for $22.50 USD/night! And the
restaurant has REAL COFFEE and we get refills.
Our little pool. We're on the second floor looking
down.
Deb: When we arrived,
I was really sick with food poisoning from the hotel in Ho Chi Minh
city, so I was pretty much out of it. When we discovered we were not
given back our passports from 'that' hotel, the Receptionist right
away said 'no problem, we will get them for you.' You can't imagine
the relief we felt. That was the beginning of a relationship with the
staff that became very endearing & we were treated like family.
Originally we booked for 3 nights but booked another 3 weeks.
Steve: We have the local
bus sorted out now, so it’s time to go for a look-see at Mui Ne
town. The single most striking thing about the town is the fishing
fleet. There are a humungous pile of boats anchored just off-shore,
and they use little round plastic coracols with inboard motors to get
back and forth to shore and to haul their nets in and out. Other
than that it’s a very forgettable little town.
A side-street in Mui Ne. Motorbike good, car bad.
Deb: The market in
Mui Ne was your typical fishermans village market. They sell the meat
& fish in the back, the vegetables, food & 'restraunts' in
the middle, and everything else as you first walk in.
These pancakes have
scallion, squid, & shaved potatoe in the middle. Very tasty
indeed!
Phan Thiet is completely
different, though. The only thing in common is the big fleet of
fishing boats, which they keep in a river. It is a fair-size city
(ca. 200,000) and has shopping centres and movie theaters and such.
We wore our feet off walking, as usual. And we found a tiny little
liquor store that sells decent Chilean wine in a box for a good
price. Yippee!
Fishers and their round things in Phan Thiet.
These people don't know whether they're coming or
going....
The restaurants in
Vietnam will cook up anything & everything. While us 'westerners'
may not approve of some of the items, here it is just something that
is natural. Having said that, I tried Alligator. The belly meat is
more tender than the tail, which is quite chewy, but it was just
meat, no fat and I guess the taste is somewhere between
chicken/rabbit.
This is not a chicken, or a rabbit.
Here are a few
interesting doors in our neighbourhood.
Elephant Doorway: This
place did not have the bricks in place for a door when we arrived. We
got to watch the whole transformation from no brick walls to the
competion of lock-up.
This door has an
additional safety lock of Cactus.
Kite surfing/boarding
and surfing is the #1 sport here and they hold international
competitions usually in November. The wind is up around 11 each
morning and believe me, you get blown around pretty good. The surf
was too rough for us to go in and we watched as people who were
trying to take selfies and photo's of others, get knocked down and
they were only in water up to their knees...quite entertaining at
times. I only saw 1 shop selling boogie boards and 1 person using
them...which I found strange, until I saw how rough the surf was. If
you were not paying attention, you would be slam dunked in the blink
of an eye.
A typical mid-afternoon, with the sky full of kites.
This monkey has a guy working for him selling ice cream.
Doesn't want to be recognized - probably not declaring
his income.
