I’m back in Ho Chi Minh City for a night again. Rocked up today after a four-hour bus ride from Mui Ne to the same hotel I stayed at for the latter part of being here last time and asked if I could get a room. The nice lady at the front of Freedom Hotel said sure and charged me $18 for the exact same room. So here I reside again, in the same room where the showerhead is right next to the toilet with no divider. I’ll take that peculiarity for a room this cheap.
I have to
admit, though, that I missed Ho Chi Minh City. After a few days here, I longed
for the quiet of a smaller town to headquarters at. And while it was certainly
not as packed (not many places on earth have as many people bustling about as Ho
Chi Minh City), I wouldn’t necessarily describe Mui Ne as “quiet.” It was
something of a simple fishing town and a tourist destination, dancing between
the odd middle ground of each. I was hoping it’d be a bit quieter, perhaps
hearing less of the constant buzz of the mopeds than in Ho Chi Minh City, but the
main street that connected it to the rest of civilization was constantly packed
with people on unimproved roads.
That’s not
to say I didn’t enjoy Mui Ne. The seafood was, of course, fantastic as always,
although that should probably go without saying. The beach was killer. I haven’t
gone into the water since Tsushima, and even though I’m a horrible swimmer, it
still is something I’ve missed. I was hesitant to rent a moped, as I don’t have
an international driver’s license, but it turned out to be a non-event, and
whipping around on that little thing reminded me how much I love them. I like
going fast.
There
were also some bigger highlights. Seeing all the boats out there at night with
their colourful lights flashing was truly an appropriate scene for Christmas
season, even if they likely have them flashing year-round. Coming out of my
hotel to see the harbour jam-packed with all these boats would consistently
provoke a sense of sondern, as if every single one of them had a family to
feed. I suppose it’s the same with a parking lot full at an office, come to
think of it. Just curious to me how the task was different for the same goal.
I finally got my glasses fixed,
too. They’ve been bent for months, now, and I simply haven’t found a glasses
shop that would re-bend them into shape. It’s been particularly frustrating
when working out, looking down and having them fall off the bridge of my nose. Japan
turned me down when I asked them once. But the nice dude at a glasses shop Mui
Ne fixed them free of charge. He wouldn’t even accept my payment. And speaking
of nice people, the lady that worked at my hotel was a jewel. She arranged a
bus ride for me, got a moped delivered to me to rent, and even hailed a
moped-taxi for me to get back to the station. Truly one of the nicest people I’ve
met here, and a testimony to the quality of Vietnamese people.
I also ate turtle. It was barbequed
and quartered. Lots of bones and slimey membranes to get through, but the meat
itself was pretty tasty. It actually tasted the most like pork, but a tad
fishy. I wouldn’t order it again because it was truly a pain to eat, but I’m
glad I can curb my curiosity of what it might taste like.
Perhaps my
biggest highlight was stumbling upon the dunes. Oddly enough for someone that
despises the heat, I actually quite like the dunes. Something about these roving
hills of sand provokes the inner Lawrence of Arabia some of us have, and I just
feel a romantic quality simply trekking around in the vast, simple shapes that
the endless sand assembles itself upon the earth. It’s actually a major reason
I chose to come to Mui Ne in the first place.
As part of my travel objective of not
doing too much research, I more or less found a couple dune spots and just moseyed
on over to them. Right after I parked my moped and began the trek towards the
great mounds of sand, a man approached me and offered to let me drive an ATV, I
think. I couldn’t quite understand him. But for about $22, I figured it was
worth a gamble. He then offered to let me sandboard down the sides for an
additional $4. Sure, why the hell not. It was always on my bucketlist to try
sandboarding, anyway. If I could do it here, happy days. After paying, this
young Vietnamese dude materialised out of nowhere to get on one of the ATVs and
gestured for me to get on behind him. Rather intimate of a moment for someone
who hasn’t spoken a single word to you, but hey, when in ‘Nam, right?
So I rode
with him up to the top of a hill where some of the others were gathered. We got
off and he procured this primitive piece of plastic with a string attached to
the front. He flipped it over and hastily applied an extremely thin line of
something to the bottom of it. The engineer within me doubted it really did
anything, but hey, I’m not the expert.
Then, he gestured to me to get on,
positioned my body peculiarly, and then rolled me on my back as I held the rope,
and then pushed me down as if I was riding a sleigh. I guess it wasn’t
sandboarding, but close enough. I slowly shimmied down the hill before he
started shouting. What? Okay, I’ll trek back up. I did so with a sprint, just happy
to be on the sand.
We tried
again, but to the same results, only getting about halfway down the mountain. I
ran back up again, getting a bit gassed from the hike, but still energised. He
lathered a bit more of that whatever it was on the board and flung my down
again, and this time, I really rocketed. I actually stuck my arm out to the
side because I couldn’t steer the bloody thing, and that managed to slow me
down. I had made it further than the previous time, but I still had more of the
mound to go down. So I figured I’d do what Travis Pastrana would have done and
I put the board on my chest, sprinted forward, and dove on my belly.
This did
not turn out how I imagined. I bounced off the board and flung face-first into
the sand, with my legs coiling up behind my back. I spat sand out of my mouth
and instantly snapped up towards the top of the hill, embarrassed if they had
seen me wipe out like that. If they did, they hid it well, continuing to talk
amongst themselves. I noticed right away that the sand on my face was reluctant
to come off, being affixed via the sweat I had accrued. It didn’t matter how
much I wiped, there was always more. On my face, in my ears, within my hair,
everywhere. I kept spitting, trying to get it out, but to little avail. So I
began another perilous trek up the hill, this time with very little pep in my
step. When I finally made it to the top, he asked if I wanted to go again. Nah,
I think I got my money’s worth.
So we sat
there for a little bit until this blonde Austrian chick asked me how it went. I
told her straight-up that it was an experience worth avoiding. We spoke some
more and she mentioned that they only asked her for $15 USD to get up the hill
on an ATV, so we were debating whether I paid to drive the ATV or to simply get
a ride up. She said it was a 30 minute walk up the hill, so it seemed like I
paid for the latter. We were chatting when the Vietnamese boys around tried to
get us to ride down the sand board together. I told them no. Those Vietnamese
guys were savages though lol. When our conversation ended and she began to walk
away, they were all urging me to go get her Instagram. I told them “No, I’ve
got a girlfriend!” That’s not technically true, but whatever I’ve got going is
much more important to me than that, so I’d feel guilty otherwise.
Eventually, it was time to depart the
mountain. My driver got on the side of the ATV and beckoned for me to take the
handles. Oh, sick, I guess I was driving it! So with a little bit of guidance,
I took off in the thing down the hill.
Of course, I came across the
Austrian chick on her way down. I asked the guy if we could honk, showing her
that I was actually driving the thing. He slowed down and asked her to get on. Sure
lol even better, let’s save her the walk. So with my suggestion, she got on the
other side of it, to the dismay of our driver who was urging her to get behind
it. I whipped it down the hill and the poor girl almost flew off. But we made
it to the end and she hopped off and said I was a great Uber driver. Thanks,
but we both know that was a lie. So we said our goodbyes and my driver pointed
down a path for me to drive on.
I remember years ago when I was
watching a dating show, and a guy took the girl he was with on an ATV ride and
she described him as a careful driver, which came across as the guy not being
exciting. Now, I was only on the ride with my Vietnamese driver, so I had no
such worry with the dating aspect, but I’ll be damned if I ever get described
as boring. So I floored the bloody machine, taking turns with just a hair of
unease as we’d shift to the side to prevent flipping. I never realised how much
fun an ATV could be, but I sure enjoyed the hell out of it.
We rode around the entire dunes,
across hills and along paths. The Vietnamese driver didn’t intervene until we
got close to people and he wanted to park it, so we did, I hopped off, and he said
“picture!”, so I took a spot he pointed to on the tip of the dunes and he snapped
one of me as if I was posing for a Christmas card.
I asked him to take one of me on
the ATV as well, so people would know I didn’t come to the Dunes just to take
photos. Did I forget to mention that they gave me the goofiest helmet they
could find?
We got on the ATV again and began
another wild ride through the dunes. We encountered a couple girls getting
their photos taken, and because I always like to photobomb, I waved in the
background of their photo. My driver, always keen for the ladies, tried to get
us to stop to give them a ride. I said no, but I smiled and waved again as we
went past, and he got a huge kick out of that, laughing the hardest I heard him
the entire day.
We
finally made it to the bottom and got off, and we finally had a moment to
speak. His English was not very good, but he told me his name was “Ke”, which
is exciting because I’m learning Japanese, and his name would be け
in Hiragana and ケ in Katakana. I told him he was my friend, and in his simple
English he said “you, idol”. For the ATV riding? Probably not lol. Probably for
the girls. But regardless, it meant a lot to me. Ke was a cool dude.
Mui Ne for sure had its appeal,
but I was happy to board the bus back to Ho Chi Minh City today. I missed the
ease of access to all the great food, that everything was within walking
distance, and the excitement of being in a proper city instead of a busy fishing
town. Perhaps I set the bar too high after being in Tsushima, but I couldn’t
help comparing the two. Tsushima will forever be a spot in my heart, and I don’t
think the standard it set will be fair to anywhere else I visit.
Regardless, I still enjoyed Mui
Ne. Regardless of how I felt about it, there’s a part of me I’ll take with me
for quite some time, as I can still scratch my head or rub the insides of my
ears and find sand from that wipeout on the dunes. But that killer view of the
sunset at the beach, where the sky turns the whole world pink for a few
minutes? It’s something that can’t possibly be fully captured in a photo. But I
tried, anyway.
SOTD – “Money” by Pink Floyd. It
was stuck in my head for days because it sounds like “Mui Ne.”
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