Mui Ne!

We hired a car to take us to the night train to Mui Ne, an oceanside town in Southern Viet Nam.  We had plenty of time to spare, so, after a madcap scavenger hunt through Hoi An for some items we needed for the trip, we directed our driver to take us to Marble Mountain.  This beautiful tourist destination, nine miles south of Da Nang, features five craggy, marble hills, each with natural grottos and caves into which have been carved statues and images of Hindu and Buddhist deities.  Kathy and Michael braved the 106-step and rock pile climb to reach the highest point of Marble Mountain, while Linda chose to be "Left to Die" (see picture).  Both parties found themselves to be the source of much interest and amusement for the largely Southeast Asian crowd. Kathy and Linda were both asked to have their photos taken!

Once again, we boarded a night train, this one for a town near our next destination of Mui Ne.  This 14-hour trip began at 11:00 p.m. in a 4-berth cabin already inhabited by a sleeping Vietnamese woman.  After tracking down a worker to clean up the rice porridge a previous passenger had spilled on the floor and his sheets, we made up our beds and settled in for the night.  Our cabin mate awoke before dawn, and spent several hours opening and closing the door, climbing up to and down from her bunk, visiting with her male friend from another cabin, talking on her phone, and sitting for extended periods of time on the bunks of Kathy and Linda, who, oddly enough at this hour, were attempting to sleep!

We arrived at our destination, the Pandanus Beach Resort, around 2 p.m.  This beautiful seaside resort, run by an ex-pat named Steve from San Francisco, rivaled the nicest beach resorts we have seen.  It had a lovely open-air lobby, where we were greeted with cool towels and fruit juice, a large pool area, a nice stretch of beach with loungers and shade palapas, and an open-air restaurant, where we were treated to a sumptuous breakfast buffet each morning.  The first evening, we rode bicycles to a small local restaurant for dinner.  The next morning, we took advantage of the resort's complimentary shuttle to ride into town to go to the market.  As were all the markets we had experienced in Southeast Asia, this one was bustling with sights, sounds and smells.  We knew we were becoming accustomed to this experience when we were no longer surprised by anything we saw!  We spent the rest of that day enjoying the pool and beach, which, due to its being off-season, were uncrowded.  Linda was surprised that the energetic Michael and Kathy proved to be very able beach bums!  Dinner that night was at an Indian restaurant in town that Michael found through his perusal of TripAdvisor.  We had delicious curries and wonderful garlic nan while people-watching those who passed on the streets of Mui Ne.

In the morning we caught the shuttle again, this time headed to the Fairy Stream.  The shuttle driver directed us to walk down a rather scary-looking alley, and once we arrived at a muddy stream, indicated that we should take off our shoes and walk through the water!  All-righty, then!  After all, when in Viet Nam...
After a short walk down the stream, which was, after all, reddish-brown from the sandy bottom, not mud, we began to see the beautiful sandy cliffs that rose up from the bed of the stream.  The red and white cliffs formed a canyon reminding us of Bryce Canyon in Utah.  The colors of the canyon against the bright blue sky were breathtaking.  All three of us were inspired to climb as high as our abilities allowed!  This was harder than we thought it would be, as the fine sand crumbled under each step we took (see photos).  We took a hilarious video of Michael getting sucked  into a quicksand-like portion of the cliff!

Returning to the resort, we spent another lazy afternoon at the beach and pool.  Just before sunset, we ventured out on foot to the nearby sand dunes, where we rented two "sleds" made of cheap vinyl shower-wall stuff.  We spent a wonderful hour climbing up and sledding down the beautiful dunes.  The view from the top was panoramic, enabling us to see other dunes, mountains, fishing boats in the ocean, and the town of Mui Ne.  The beautiful sunset was a fitting goodbye to the amazing country of Viet Nam, a country we now realized we had previously known very little about.  As Americans old enough to remember the Viet Nam War, we had certain preconceived ideas about this far-off land.  Many of these ideas changed as we traveled throughout the country and experienced the warmth, humor and kindness of its people.  We realized, after all, that we have more in common with them than we may have previously thought:  we are all just trying to work to earn a living, and provide for and enjoy our families.  So, goodbye, Viet Nam, we're on our way...