Mui Ne is a tiny resort town on a Vietnamese beach. The beach is nothing much but every guest house boasts itself as a resort, no matter how small or large, and nearly every one has a divine swimming pool that is too inviting to refuse.

Poolside

We spent two glorious days lounging in the sun beside a glittering pool and taking a swim when we got too hot or too restless. One afternoon we shook our bones awake and took a rented motorbike up to see the dunes.

Saben dune climbing

Dunes

Though they are nothing spectacular, they are a neat site if you have a free half hour. If nothing else, the ride out of town is a fun endeavor in itself. Along the highway farther out of town are racks and racks of drying fish which are used to make Vietnam’s famous fish sauce.

Ready for the sauce

Boats in the bay

We have been thoroughly enjoying ourselves relaxing in a tiny garden like resort, trying not to think about applying for jobs or looking for apartments.

View down the beach

With two hot, sweaty days and nothing of interest within the city to see or do, we spent two hot, sweaty days on Nha Trang beach soaking up the last bit of sun we can before we go home.

You can really taste the heart attack

We even applied for our first jobs during this time and are now completely freaked out that we are actively seeking employment. It doesn’t feel like it is really happening, or at least not to us. A kind of surreal feeling to be this close to going back to our home country to no home, job (not even any prospects), and no possessions aside from a large wooden dinosaur cut-out and a few boxes of books.

View down the beach

It was a fierce battle. One that may just change how history books are written: the massacre on bus 312, Hoi An to Nha Trang. [insert ominous music here]

Sleeper bus

Last night we took a night bus heading for Nha Trang and were surprised at not only having bedmates but the particular kind of bedmates these were. Every size, age, and color of some overly friendly cockroaches. As we stepped onto the bus and bent down to get into our lower bunks, there were 3 cuddly cockroaches warming Lin’s bed. With a bus full of people, how could she have shrieked and shivered as she so badly wanted to? What’s more, how could she avoid sleeping in such a bed with strangers?! She didn’t even know the names of those creatures and she spent the entire night battling to stay awake, swatting and spazzing out to keep her roaches at bay. Some of those suckers were huge!! And that was just her bed! Both sides of the bus walls were actually crawling in big and small roaches and the beds on either side of Lin’s were even more creepy crawly than hers! (Lucky Lin). So through an usually long night of much murder and attempted bug slaughter, we arrived at Nha Trang with Lin ready to flee from that bus, good riddance!

Touts on the beach

Luckily, Nha Trang seemed to be a more pleasant destination to lay our heads for the night. The beach is decent and the water is a pretty dark teal color. The wind blowing across the sand makes for nice sunbathing despite all the local Vietnamese men leering in the shade at the edge of the beach. Nha Trang is a busy city with a decent beach. Lots of trash and weird smells throughout the city but hey, that’s just how things go here.

The past few days we have been shopping and walking around in Hoi An’s seemingly endless array of shops.

Through the streets of Hoi an

Saben got a suit made, we toasted to St. Patty’s Day, we went to the beach (yes, we walked there and back too…12km), and wandered through the small market of crazed vendors who will do anything to stop you in front of their shop (think: literally standing on your shoes to keep you from walking away).

Saben's new suit

I'm not sure Tiger beer is what St. Pat had in mind but we do what we can

The beach

In the market

Instead of regaling you with each day, we decided to cut it down into a single less boring post with lots of pictures. Hurray!

Swinging in a seaside hammock watching a bright pink and red sunset after a fat crab dinner drowned in Kampot pepper sauce and ice cold Angkor beer…we could get used to this kind of life.

Kampot Pepper Crab

Kep is the epitome of a “sleepy fishing village.” It seems to consist of a few tiny hamlets spread a few kilometers apart and the main part, Kep City, is little more than an uninhabited tiny town. It looks as if Kep is waiting for a large tourism boom in the next 10-15 years and when that happens, the citizens will get out and about. For now, everyone seems to lounge in shelter houses by Kep Beach in one of the rows and rows of hammocks looking out at the sea or just rest under a shade tree on the promenade that runs along the water.

Kep Beach

When we arrived we weren’t sure that we had actually even gotten to Kep. There are guesthouses and a couple restaurants beginning a few kilometers out of “town” and this is about where we were dropped off. We checked 3 places and enjoyed the walk between the guesthouses, relishing the quiet and little amount of traffic. The countryside is very beautiful and green, kind of reminds us of the farmland around Nicaragua.

The backstreets of Kep

We went for dinner down to the Crab Market where a small collection of tiny open air, seaside restuarants serve the freshest crabs slathered in Kampot pepper sauce. To give you an idea of just how fresh the crab was: we were sitting looking out at the sea and watching the crab catchers hard at work when we saw the lady who took our order go buy a bag full of live crabs from one of the catchers just below us!

Fresh crabs being brought in

After dinner we took a walk around town alongside the quiet calm water. There isn’t much to Kep and certainly not much to do but it’s such a beautiful and peaceful place. A nice place to recharge and really relax with the day’s top priority being swinging lazily in a hammock.

A little hammock time

Sihanoukville is not our favorite place. The beaches are so-so, the food is pretty good but a little pricey, and there are a few too many loud-spoken foreigners eager to brag about their own humanitarian activities here. A little disappointed that we traveled all the way down here for this but you can’t win all the time. Heading to Kep tomorrow morning to have a look and eat some fresh crabs and try the famous Kampot pepper.

Road to the beach

Bussing south to the beach from the less picturesque city of Phnom Penh sounds like a pretty nice endeavor. We were heading to Otres Beach in Sihanoukville, known to be a quiet and relaxing beach. We arrived in a tuk tuk via a dirt and sand covered path with alternating giant rocks and giant holes.

Ahhh.. beer and icecream

From town it was maybe 20 or so minutes to Otres Beach. When we arrived, we found Otres was not so much “quiet” and “realxed” but completely silent and a bit dirty. After checking out several of the bungalows and such, we decided Otres was really just not for us. There are so few people, tourists or locals, in this area that the road was virtually empty. We were incredibly lucky to have been walking along the road only a few minutes when a tuk tuk came by. Otherwise only 1 motorbike had passed us and there was no other traffic in sight–or hearing range!

Serendipity Beach

We bumped and bounced and rattled our internal organs nearly to death on the way back toward town to both hit an ATM (bad planning on our part) and find a new beach. We decided to just park ourselves at the first place we found. It was called Serendipity Beach and it was nice enough, even if overly touristed. If nothing else, that made it very convenient and left many options open for finding cheap food and lodging.

Spent two days diving, swimming, and lying in the sun. Guess it’s not too exciting to tell, but nice to enjoy! Tomorrow we head back to Bangkok to get ready to go to Cambodia the day after. Hurray for travel days…

Us!

You know the saying, You win some, you lose some? Today was one of those days where we lost.

Moments before the blood bath

It began at as a nice morning with snorkeling and sharks in our near future. We started off on our 5km walk to Shark Bay and though it was pretty warm already that early, it was good preparation for the cool ocean. When we arrived to the bay, we discovered we had to do a bit of hiking and wading to get to a spot to stow our stuff and get in. On our trek across large and slippery boulders and through waist deep water, we encountered 2 problems. The first was when Lin’s unsuspecting foot was quite impolitely harpooned by a rather upset sea urchin. The second was about 2 minutes later when Saben’s foot was very unhappily skewered by a shard of glass that caused him to bleed, literally, like a stuck pig and thus, draw dozens of very hungry bull sharks toward us which then led to a rather unpleasant shark attack where Saben lost both legs and one eye despite his best efforts at punching the whole gang of 318 sharks squarely in the face. It was a lucky thought to give a swift roundhouse kick to the whole group of crazed sharks which caused the bottom halves of his legs to go flying through the air, which Lin promptly caught as the sailed by. Lucky enough we had our sewing kit and ziplock sized first aid kit and we were able to successfully reattach both legs.

Saben with both legs!

OK so I said two things. That was three. Just kidding about the sharks. But really we did both manage to jack up a foot each and there was no snorkeling to be had, what with Saben’s foot gushing (actually, that’s a fact) blood all over the place. Unfortunately we had brought only the snorkel gear, sunscreen, and our clothes so we didn’t even have first aid stuff or money. Yup, had to walk to 5km back home on gimpy and/or bleeding feet. Not a good day and it wasn’t even noon yet.

A very grown up supper of Nutela and pretzels

But we made it back home with relatively few shark encounters (they don’t favor walking alongside the road much) and spent the afternoon lying on the beach. If we can’t go snorkeling, the least we can do it get out of the room and look at some nice scenery.

Saben packed in two dives today before lunch! Starting out at around 6:30 am he was loading gear and heading out on the Big Blue boat. First dive spot of the day was splendid chompron pinnacle. A place famous for its sharks! (Due to Saben’s lack of underwater camera the following photos are brought to you via flickr. Bull shark via user cliffandally.)

Bull Shark via cliffandally

He was rewarded for his early rise by not one, not two but 4 sharks! Bulls and Grey reef sharks were trolling the deep waters off the pinnacle looking for an easy meal. The waters here are beautiful, visibility is decent at around 15-20 meters. The reefs are not a colorful as other dives but this only makes the bright oddity that much brighter. (Giant clam crawling out of its shell via user rling)

Giant clam crawling out of its shell via rling

Giant sea anemone and giant clams breakup the reef in bright fluorescent blues and greens. Damsel fish fly by like blue and yellow streaks. An amazing sight. (Stingray photo via flickr user EpF.)

Blue Spotted Stingray by EpF

Dive number two was at Twins. Much the same attractions as at chompron, trigger fish, angel fish, moon rasse, butterfly fish, ect. No sharks this time but something maybe better. We found two blue spotted stingrays and a ton of fluorescent sea slugs (Sabens favorite sea creature after the Narwhal). The stingrays were hiding from the mid day sun so the only way to see them is to float head down and hover inches above the sand looking under ledges. Good thing he has his buoyancy down. (Sea slug photo via user torvaanser.)

Sea Slug via

After lunch we headed back out to the beach for some leisure time swimming and sunning ourselves on the beautiful shores in the Gulf of Thailand. Besides that, not much else to tell except that the weather is perfect, just hot enough to make the ocean inviting but not too hot to be overwhelming. The view is spectacular, the food is great, there are plenty of fun people and silly tourists around too. A lovely place indeed!