The guidebooks and website claim it is a sleepy litle place on the Vietnamese coast that is popular with weekenders from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) and backpackers looking for a break from their travels. They forgot about the hundreds of tourists from all over Europe, Asia, Russia and the Americas. This place is loaded up with ritzy resorts and spas. If Airlie beach actually had a beach, it would be much the same.
But it blows ! So for the twelve days I was there, there were only two days that we didn't get to pump up kites and ride. When it did blow there were up to a hundred kites along the couple of kilometres of beach that is pretty narrow and busy on high tide.
I'm reading back through this and it looks as though I'm having a whinge. That's not exactly right. I was dissapointed to see it so busy and commercialised, but I met some great people, had some great times and rode more in the last two weeks than I have been able to in the last eighteen months. I took a trip in an old Willies jeep with a couple from Holland out to some sanddunes, lotus lake and a creek running through the sanddunes to the sea. A few of us got sick of the crowds and cross/offshore gusts and went on a trip around to Malibu beach and Turtle island and rode there for a few days. It was really good to explore these places and ride with three or four new friends and no one else.
Now that I've been there once, I have a better idea of how to get around and where to go, and I'll definitely be going back too.
One tip though .... take some instant coffee. The people are really warm and welcoming, the food is great - and cheap, you can live on $US15 a day(food and accom) fairly easily here -, but the coffee .... sorry, it sux. Living in China, I'm a litle too use to haggling too. The Vietnamese Dong is roughly 15 000 to the $AU, so when you're standing there haggling with a motorbike taxi over 5 000 Dong, sometimes you need a reality check. There are the rip offs though. One guy expected me to pay 450 000 Dong for a sandwich for supper and noodles for breakfast on the way from Saigon to Mui Ne, but changed his mind, and a zero off the price, when I told him in terrible Mandarin that it was too expensive and he is not getting that much off me. It is surprising to see how much Chinese is spoken here.
One other thing a few us were discussing late one evening over a 11 000 Dong Saigon Bia one night - as you do; There are very few people between the age of 40 and 60 years old. This was the case in Mui Ne and then again I noticed it in Saigon again when I went back in for NYE (no wind)
This trip was one of the first times I have booked and planned and when I got there I got told they were overbooked and full, so I had to find somewhere else to stay when I got to Mui Ne, then the same when I went in to Saigon, after I'd had a shower in the room and getting ready to go out for NYE. All worked out in the end and I spent the last hours of 2008 with a Scot "on my way from Inverness to London", three Europeans not living in their country of birth (one lives in Shangahi so we had plenty to talk about), a Philipino band and a friendly crowd in a Vietnamese club loaded with tourists. I met a guy at the bar from the Isa, a Canadian girl going to Beijing and wanting to know where not to go and another Aussie living in Singapore who hadn't heard an Aussie drawl like mine for a while. All in all a good night but even better trying to find my 'hotel' (I use the term VERY loosely) early next morning. There were markets setting up in front of the place so it didn't look anything like the place I'd left the night before, but the lady selling fruit on the doorstep of the place showed me the side door.
So from wintery Vietnam at 25 degrees C on a plane back to Weihai at 2 degrees C at 2:30 PM where any water not flowing is solid ......
Ah ...... back in the real world!
