Mui Ne

Hi, welcome to paradise

Mui Ne is an idyllic beach about 5 hours north of Saigon. It’s not extremely popular among tourists, yet, so it was really nice going to a quiet, clean beach. The main reason we decided to stop at this beach is because it has some large white and red sand dunes around that make for some beautiful scenery next to the beach with palm trees hanging over the fine sand beach.

Upon arriving to our guesthouse, which was far away from the main tourist strip (Mui Ne has one road along the beach and we were at the end closer to the fishing village, meaning few tourists), we were eagerly greeted by the owners who yelled, “Laura! America!” They couldn’t stop laughing at my name, which they knew since I had booked online. 

After our day on the beach, the family that owned our guesthouse offered to make us dinner. We told them that we had to first book a tour of the sand dunes with our friend who we had met on the bus and asked how we could get a ride into town. The owner told us to wait a minute, and he quickly returned with a large motorcycle and two helmets so Kate and I could hop on the back. We were so happy with their incredible hospitality and that we didn’t have to worry about paying for motorcycle taxis both ways. When we returned to the guesthouse we were forced to sit down with the owner and his two friends and eat hard boiled eggs and take shots of a liquor made from bananas. The owner’s friend could not stop saying my name and laughing. We finally figured out that “Laura” means “to take out” in Vietnamese. It was certainly one of the more memorable St. Patrick’s days.

fishing village

The next day Kate and I decided to rent motorbikes. We had been contemplating the idea for a long time, since it is quite dangerous to ride them, but it is the best way to explore your surrounding area wherever you are in South East Asia. Mui Ne was a great place to learn since it is just a straight road. We rode to the fishing village and along the main tourist strip. When we finally felt confident enough we took a turn off the main road in Mui Ne and found ourselves on a completely empty, beautifully paved road with gorgeous flowers in the median. We could see the ocean to one  side and the red sand dunes to the other. It was a very cool ride and a great introduction to driving motorbikes.

Our motorbike drive was sadly cut short because we had to return to our guesthouse to get picked up for our sand dune tour. It was a four our tour that took us to to a river that ran through white rocks and red dunes, white sand dunes, a red canyon, and finished with sunset on the red sand dunes. We covered a lot of ground and were infinitely impressed with the beautiful scenery that Mui Ne has to offer. It is certainly different than anything we have seen so far and not what we would expect to find in Vietnam.

contemplating the white sand dunes

sunset over the red sand dunes