After two very long and packed days in Vietnam, we finally managed to have our first real night's sleep yesterday. There's something very relaxing about listening to the waves when you're lying in bed.
Day 2 in Mue Ne (Day 3 in Vietnam) began very early -- before 6am, in fact! Those who know Tianne well might not believe it, but it really did happen. Seriously! In fact, we tried to have breakfast at the restaurant at 6am, but it was still closed. We are in the south of Vietnam, somewhere between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator. The entire country is located below 23N Latitude. This means the sun rises very early - it's light out at about 5am and gets dark by about 7pm.
Left with an hour to fill before breakfast, we decided to head back to the room to get organized. We also sliced open the dragon fruit that a waiter had given us the night before. It was very interesting... similar texture to a kiwi but was not very sweet. It's called a dragon fruit because the outside is pink and green, and looks like a (surprise!) drago. So we sat around on the deck for awhile, enjoying dragon fruit and tea on our balcony until the restaurant was open. Tianne advises that artichoke tea tastes about as good as it sounds.
One of the benefits of staying at a better resort is no continental breakfast. They had a full buffet that included many Vietnamese dishes, a number of fruits, juices and the usual breakfast fare. If we were walking in off the street, it would cost about CDN $6 per person, which is the amount we've been paying for two people.
Those of you who know me well recognize how important a good cup of coffee is to me in the morning. Today marked the first day in which I had the opportunity to enjoy the coffee here, which has the reputation for being very good. It did not disappoint. I think these beans had been roasted in butter, but I'm not sure. I also enjoyed some pineapple jam (I'm going to buy a couple of jars) and watermelon juice (which I think I'm going to try to make at home).
Tianne and I decided to work off some of our breakfast with a long walk on the beach. Mue Ne has a beautiful beach, and the dry sand is very clean. Unfortunately, the sand in the ocean has very course shells. The waves are quite choppy, which makes it popular for a variety of water sports (such as wind and kite surfing) and flying kites. We saw a lot of different things, including sea slugs, crabs, jellyfish, and fish eggs. It also looks like Tianne is starting a new shell collection, and put together a very fashionable coconut carrying case for all of her treasures. For my part, I found a complete conch shell that's in excellent good condition.
We spent the rest of the morning out at the pool, which was pretty empty. It turns out that yesterday was incredibly busy in Mue Ne because it was a holiday weekend in Vietnam -- April 30th was Reunification Day and May 1st was International Workers Day. We met a Swiss expat who had arrived with his family on the Saturday of the long weekend and finally managed to get into a very basic (read: crappy) room in the late afternoon.
After another great (and cheap) lunch at the backpacker restaurant across the street, we took a stroll along the strip to do some shopping and honed our bartering skills. One of the interesting sights was watching some locals build a resort by hand, and hauling the bricks up to a higher floor with just a string and a basket.
Then it was off to the pool and beach again until another backpacker dinner (this time it was about CDN$6 for two). We booked our bus to Nha Trang (we head out tomorrow at ~1pm) and had a very interesting conversation with the owner and staff about politics. It turns out that the national elections are this week in Vietnam, and apparently they don't let foreigners into the country this week (April 30th to May 5th) in case there are any problems. We made it by a day, and I guess that explains why the Embassy of Vietnam pre-dated our visas by about a week! Generally there are not any problems during election time, save for the odd demonstrations. We are not concerned by anything we've seen. I am again feeling very grateful for traveling with Tianne who can converse with the locals to get the real scoop about what's going on.
We are planning to have a very busy morning because we're on a bus from ~1pm until 6:30pm and want to fit in as much as we can. The tentative plan is to go for a beach walk at 6am, drive mopeds at 7am to see a nearby fish market and village to watch the return of the fishers (they fish at night because it is cooler) and then enjoy another super breakfast across the street. We don't have to check out until noon so we'll spend the rest of the time on the pool or at the beach. While we don't have a real travel plan, It looks like we're going to be in Nha Trang on Thursday and Friday night.
No comments:
Post a Comment