Mui Ne

First off, I was wrong when I said Mui Ne is pronounced like "Monet." It's actually "muy nay" like "muy" bien in Spanish. And in English phonetics, it is /m:ɔi: neɪ/. (Just took the phonetics test in class today... ugh.)

Anyway, Mui Ne was awesome. The town is basically made up of just one road that spans along the coastline for maybe 10 or 15 kilometers. The town is pretty quiet and relaxing, and it's definitely very catered to foreigners on vacation. Which means prices were also catered to foreigners. It was hard to find a meal for under 50 or 60k dong, drinking cost from $1-$2 USD for a beer or $2.50-$6 for a cocktail, and touristy activities were upwards of $40. Mui Ne is famous for kite boarding and I really wanted to try, but I couldn't find anywhere to get a lesson for less than $50. And my new debit card STILL has yet to arrive, so kite boarding will have to wait.

Friday night we checked into the hotel around 8, went out for dinner, and then jumped into the ocean for a bit. The water is incredibly warm, the warmest sea water I've ever felt. Then Saturday during the day I got a massage (there are massage parlors everywhere in both Mui Ne and Saigon), went swimming a few times, explored, ate, and rented a bicycle to bike around the town.

And Saturday night was one of the craziest, spontaneous nights of my life! We started the night by getting a drink at Club Hollywood, an overpriced club with music that will literally blow out your ears. So we left, and on our way to another bar, we passed a few Vietnamese guys sitting in a circle playing guitar. As we walked by, they motioned for us to come play them some American music, and because I have not been able to play guitar in so long, I jumped at the opportunity. Not before long, an Irish "lad" named Steed (age 29), whom we had met briefly the previous night, walked by and decided to join the circle. Five minutes later, the German owner of a guest house across the street came over with two more guitars and a harmonica. I don't know his name, but he looked to be 55 or 60 years old. And finally, an expat from England (Abby, age 25) and a Swedish kid, Sam (age 21), had a seat as well. So.... Sweden, England, Ireland, Germany, Vietnam, and the US- that's six countries represented, and seven if you count that Ben is originally from Korea! After we sat around drinking a few beers and passing around the guitars for a while, two of the three Vietnamese decided to go to bed and the German man did the same soon after, leaving Sam, Abby, Steed, Ben, Evan (age 29), and I. (We nicknamed the Vietnamese boy Evan because, after several attempts, we just could not pronounce his name.)

Evan explained that he was a night watch for the resort we were sitting outside of, so we decided to get up from our nice little circle to go for a swim in the hot tub, pool, and ocean. The water was amazing, but we were being a bit too loud so Evan said he would walk with us along the beach and we could stop to swim at all of the other resorts. Since he was a night watch, he knew most other night watches and said it was no problem for us to drop in for a dip. So we walked along the beach from resort to resort, stopping at a few beach-side bars along the way as well. This resort/bar-hopping journey lasted us until nearly 4:30am when we decided to get a bite to eat.

Throughout the night, we compared countless stories about culture, food, traveling, and stereotypes, all while surrounded by the most beautiful natural and built environments. In fact, there were several moments when there would be a lull in conversation and someone would look around, pause, and mention, "holy crap, we're in VIETNAM!!!" Haha... (To which Evan would give a loud shrug.)

And finally, I crawled into my bed around 5:30 in the morning. It was a fun night.

The next day we didn't do much of anything. I woke up around 10, jumped in the ocean, got lunch, and caught the bus back to HCMC at 1:30. And to top it all off, when Ben and I arrived back at our guest house, the owner handed us each a piece of Vietnamese authentic, homemade birthday cake left over from her son's birthday party that day. YUM!