mui ne

From Mui Ne we bought our bus tickets from a travel agent conveniently located down the ally from our hotel. The tickets were 100,000 VMD each (about $4.50). It was our first time in a sleeper bus. The ride was fairly comfortable and went by fast.

Sleeper bus. I invested in a face mask which helps block out second hand smoke and automobile exhaust.

Five hours later we were dropped off in Nha Trang. We knew we were in serious tourist territory on the way to our hotel with many white faces, mostly Russian, flooding the streets. After checking out a couple different hotels, we decided on the Sunny Sea Hotel. It’s nestled down a quiet ally only one block away from the beach. They quoted $20/night but came down to $18/night after we said we had to look around a bit. We had a balcony which overlooked the ally. We don’t usually like to stay in the tourist zone because of the inflated prices on food but it didn’t take long for us to find where the locals hang out. From the hotel it’s only a 10 min walk to the street, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, where you will find lots of cheap eats.

The beautiful beach one block away from Sunny Sea Hotel.

Fruit vendor on the beach. She sang to us too. Good deal.

Nothin’ like some fresh, juicy watermelon!

A cold refreshing noodle dish with chicken and soft boiled egg.

Whole fried snapper. Served with rice on the side of course.

All the reviews about the beach in Nha Trang were true, it’s spectacular. Despite all the tourism the beach is kept pretty clean for Vietnamese standards. The water is clear, the sand is white, the waves were calm so swimming was great as well. The only problem was the hawkers who pace up and down the beach trying to sell you everything from artwork to corn on the cob. I recommend renting beach chairs from the Louasiane Brewhouse for $40,000 ($1.80) where you also have access to a nice pool and showers. Another perk I liked about renting chairs from the brewhouse is how the hawkers can’t come up to your chairs while on the beach. They will however yell at you from outside the “no solicitation” zone.

Another thing Nha Trang is known for is it’s night life and party atmosphere. To be honest I can’t really say if it this is true because we didn’t go out after 10 p.m. During the day we didn’t see anything but families and couples. Maybe the partiers all come out later. We were however told four different times to be careful with our bags on the beach. Apparently, Nha Trang is also known for its bag snatchers and pick pockets.

After three nights we were ready for a slower pace. We took the local bus (number 3) to Doc Let beach, about an hour and a half north of Nha Trang and only costs 24,000 VMD each ($1). Accommodations are quite slim here, especially when arriving on a Saturday so plan accordingly. I highly recommend staying at Paradise Resort. It’s a mile walk down the beach from where the bus drops you off. An aircon room for two that includes all 3 meals was $60 a night. Those who know us know how cheap we are so $60 a night is a lot to us. BUT… We were literally right on the beach. I was a little worried about the all-inclusive meal deal but all the meals exceeded my expectations. Lunch and dinner ranged from 3-4 courses. They also had beer and coke which are less than a dollar a piece.

Do you see why it’s called Paradise Resort?

One of the incuded meals, chicken skewers as the main.

Salads and bread with each meal as well.

Drinking a beer on the terrace overlooking the beach.

To me Doc Let was more enjoyable than Nha Trang where you can’t go five seconds without hearing the honk of an automobile or being hawked for sunglasses or motorbike rentals every five minutes. I would definitely return to Paradise resort. After three very enjoyable nights, we walked back down the beach to the bus stop and took the local bus to Ninh Hoa where we waited for another bus to pick us up to continue our journey north to Qui Nhon.

Imagine a cool breeze and you are there….

From Vung Tau we had originally wanted to travel to the Con Dao islands, a chain of unspoiled islands with the best diving in Vietnam. There are two ways to get there, the ferry from Vung Tau for $10 or a flight from Ho Chi Minh City for $80, both one way. Of course we decided we’d take the ferry. Unfortunately after roaming around on a tandem bike for a few hours to find the office(GPS coordinates for the ferry office/terminal to save others the hassle 10.413820, 107.128352) to buy tickets we were informed that it was too rough to make the crossing. We called the English-speaking lady at the office the next two days with no luck either(To save you even having to go to the termianl call Ms. Hoa at 0982 890097). Oh well, maybe we’ll get there on the way back.

So we decided to continue onto Mui Ne. There was some debate online about where the bus station was and when or if busses ran to Mui Ne. They do at 5am and 1pm for 100,000 dong ($4.50) and the station was easy to find(10.3502991, 107.0873626). The ride was around four hours on a nice bus with AC, free WiFi, and a place to charge your phone at every seat.

When we arrived we were approached by a lady who offered her guesthouse(Nhat Phuc, I’ll leave the pronunciation up to you lol) to us for the night for $10. It was a nice clean room across the street from the beach but was dark as the only window was covered. We took it and then had dinner at her beach front restaurant, a fantastic meal of spring rolls, fresh salad, sautéed spinach and vegetables, and a whole fire roasted fish smothered in chili and lemon grass, all for about $12 (and only that much because the retaurant was beach front).

The next morning we decided we wanted to move since it was gloomy and if we were going to be trapped indoors we wanted a room with a view. So we moved to Viet’s Hotel, a much nice place, in a better location in town and near the nicer part of the beach(I hear the sand shifts so that may not always be the case), and a killer view from the top of a hill, all for the same price.

Being at the top of a hill offers some advantages... — Being at the top of a hill offers some advantages…

We continued to eat good, more ban mi, more pho, more Chao, but also other random delicious dishes fried pork, sweet and sour pork, noodles and beef, all good, all different. (We also splurged on some American burgers, fries, and wings one night, our most expensive meal so far but at least it was done right.) All of this was available cheap on the same street(tiny alley) that our new hotel was on.

The "road" to our hotel — The “road” to our hotel

The next day we rented a motorbike for the day from our hotel, $3 and went to checkout the sights. Now technically your supposed to get a license to drive a motorbike in Vietnam (an onerous process and an international drivers license does NOT count) but in practice no one cares. We went to see the famous red and white dunes outside of Mui Ne (way overrated but the ride was awesome). We both loved riding the motorbike. In fact I liked it so much I kind of wish we had bought a bike, you can get them for $200 here.

The White Dunes, look at those clouds, time to go!

Unfortunately between the white dunes and the red dunes there were police pulling people over, we had heard that usually they leave the tourists alone. However that wasn’t the case here they were pulling over literally everyone, locals and tourists alike and charging them with real and fictitious infractions alike. I was originally told they were going to impound the bike for a week and then I’d have to pay an 800,000 to 1,200,000 ($35 to $45) dong fine plus the cost of renting the bike during that time not to mention having to stay there for a week. An obvious shakedown. So I said how about I just pay now, he said 1,000,000 dong, I said ok, and he said your good to drive around here for a week.

Our little motorbike journey ended being pretty expensive after that…… Come to find out that it is very uncommon for tourists to be pulled over…. Except in Mui Ne. Apparently the local police are pretty corrupt and this is a common practice for them. In fact they had the same thing going on in the same place when we left. They even pulled over our sleeper bus! We still plan to do more motorbiking.

After that debacle we decided to ride into Mui Ne proper, a small fishing village just north of the tourist areas on the beach. We were foiled again by literal monsoon rains (the reason the boat to Con Dao wasn’t running was because of a tropical depression hanging out in the South China Sea). We waited at a little while for it to die down a bit and then we made the ride home in the rain, it was exciting if not very pleasant.

Victoria posing in the rain on the beach in Mui Ne

The next day Victoria woke up with a cold, she blames the cops, I think maybe the rain did it. Anyways we took it easy after that. The next stop of the journey, the tourist mecca of Nha Trang!

Tag: mui ne

The road less traveled, Nha Trang to Doc Let.

Mui Ne and My First Bribe