So its been a while since I last wrote and there is a bit of catching up to do. After Dalat and a night in Ho Chi Minh we got a morning bus to Mui Ne beach. We were pretty exciting as we knew there was going to be some great scenery - massive sandunes etc.
Much to our suprise when we arrived they dropped us right at our guesthouse as it was associated with the bus line. That was handy for us. It also meant though that we were a fair way from the action. That afternoon we went down to the beach, walked into town to book our bus back to Ho Chi Minh and had a quiet beverage and for a change a sandwich.
When we went back to our place we thought we would book a sunrise tour in a jeep to the dunes and around the area. We decided on a $6 3 hour tour of the orange sandunes, red canyon and fishing villages. By the time Matt got back to me we were going on a $12 4 hour trip to all of the above plus the white sandunes -"most spectacular". The lady running our guesthouse was a grumpy, pushy lady. We were submissive.
So a 5am start we left in the dark and to our suprise we had the jeep plus "tour guide" to ourselves. he wasn't much of a tour guide as he didn't talk to us at all during the trip except to point in the general direction of the sight we were seeing and say to us 'you go there'.
Now the first thing I must admit is that the white sandunes were the best. And sunrise from up there was beautiful. As we walked up the dunes some of the local kids followed us with their 'sleds' for everyone to hire for a slide down. (I say everyone as there were 3 or 4 more tour groups.) After about an hour there we headed back to our driver for the next place. We passed up the sled down at this stage as we knew we could do the same at the orange dunes and thought we would do it there and beat the crowds. Little were we to realise at this point it was a big mistake.
He took us to the orange dunes next and I was a little disappointed, firstly they were pretty much a darker shade of yellow and no where near as huge as the white ones.
So as we head up the dunes, the same happens again, the kids follow but this time Me and Matt are there alone. And this time we have about 10 kids with just us. This was the start of the trouble. They were on and on about us sliding down and we said we would once we finished taking pictures. When I asked how much, they responded how ever much you want. Yes, small warning bells started then. So I said that we would pay 20,000 each for myself and matt. As that was the amount at the white dunes.
We eventually had a go each to slide down and it was a lot of fun. it was bloody hard work getting back up the hill though. I had just one go and Matt had 3 goes. So then when we decided to leave things got ugly. Firstly as we went to get our money out the kids were getting right into our wallets, not exactly touching them but right near us and looking in. I got out 20,000 to pay and then they demanded because there was 10 of them we needed to pay 20,000 for each of them. So that was 200,000 altogether which is about $6 each, yeah right.
Anyway I didn't back down and felt a bit harsh but i wasn't paying $6 and if they got away with it, it puts others in the same boat. So there next step was to tell matt that because he had 3 goes he had to pay 60,000. In the end he gave them 40,000 and we left. Those little buggers were aggressive to!
Anyway after that little dampener, things didn't improve much. We got dropped on the side of the road at the 'fishing village' which was little more than fishing boats unoccupied in the water. Lastly we got dropped at a smelly stream and told this was the last spot walk up through the dirty water up the hill and then down and walk back to the hotel. We opted out of the creek and headed home without even getting to the main attraction the red canyon.
The rest of the stay in Mui Ne was a bit disappointing, people weren't very friendly and just not a great atmosphere there. Most of the tourist were french and just not friendly and wanted to keep to themselves. On the last day i did find a great little bar though right on the water with bean bags, hammocks etc.
But at this stage we were looking forward to getting to Cambodia.
