Travelling Trio

Vietnam – Travelling from the South to North

• By Denise
• September 17, 2015
• 4 Comments

Mui Ne

Have you heard of Sleeper Buses (photos to come later) – this is what we used for our first trip north – this was only to be a four hour journey so the tight laid back seats we found ourselves in didn’t affect us too much. It is a great concept and certainly gets people from one city to the next overnight. The speed limit on the open road is just 70km so getting anywhere takes longer than we are used to. We arrived in Mui Ne at 10pm outside the entrance to our Hotel but the reception was still a mere 300m up a windy hill so we are having to lug our backpack suitcases up the rickety road to the Hotel. Nothing major – only that the wheels on our bags are getting stressed through the sheer weight we are making them carry!!

The first day we hired scooters and drove in and around the narrow streets in the small villages nearby. We came across the fishing village and meandered our way through to the sea – only to be told to get out quickly! Or that is what the hand gestures and loud voices were saying – apparently we were in private land. Oooops.. We couldn’t wait to get out of there anyway because the smell of the fish drying out and the stench of the open sewers was enough for anyone!

Small fish drying in the open

Small factory!

On our journey that day we saw many children riding their bicycles – you know the ones – the really oversized old fashioned ones – some with baskets – others not.

Our first visit to the sea was a disappointing one as we saw that it was dirty and full of rubbish. It seems the locals do not care about what goes into the sea – so everything does. We decided very quickly that we would not be swimming there and we would be spending our time in the pool at the Hotel.

Difficult to see but the beach is covered with litter and the sea filthy!

The Mui Ne Hills Hotel was a good decision as it had a positive and vibrant atmosphere with the younger backpackers passing through – swimming every day – playing beach volleyball – Carter was very keen and Mum and Dad can still match it with the youngies!

Dave and Carter racing! This time Carter is winning!

Volleyball with the “youngies”

Laundry was just $3.50 for a standard load so we certainly made use of that service. Excellent value.

Stopping by the little markets on the streets was the ‘norm’ to buy our fruit.  It is fun negotiating with the vendors for the ‘best price’.

We had found two restaurants which we were returning to time and time again – one by the hotel – the other “Sindbad” which produced the most amazing shish kebap (spelt correctly) which would rival any in NZ. After our first visit Dave immediately commented on Trip Advisor so their ratings would go up.

There are some very big resorts further to the south of Mui Ne which have their own beach – beautifully manicured but the sea is still dirty. It didn’t look like there were many people staying in the resorts which must be worrying for the local people who are employed.

After a few discussions with younger travellers we decided to chang our travel plans a bit – one night in Dalat, one night in Nha Trang and overnight to Hoi An where we will stay six nights in a nice hotel with a great pool. Well that is what trip advisor and booking.com say about the pool anyway – here’s hoping.

Dalat

Just a 4.5 hour bus trip to Da Lat. Only we got two flat tyres and we had to wait for an hour or so until another bus came by to use their gear to change the tyres and borrow their spare one! The nuts on our bus tyre rims looked like they had never been changed as they were ceased tight. It took a number of the passengers standing on a long pipe to shimmy the nuts free. Quite a sight to see. Only bonus out of it all was that the bus stopped high on a mountain under the shade of a tree so it wasn’t stifling hot.

We knew when we arrived we had made a mistake in changing our travel plans to stay just the one night. It had a european feel with hills, lake, later model housing and the streets were clean. Carter likened it bit to Dunedin with its hills and Dave decided that Dalat is like New Zealand’s Queenstown with it being a tourist hub. The weather was cooler and much more bearable. And to top it off we had booked into a budget Guesthouse again for $25 including breakfast (the cheapest for us by a long shot) and it was brilliant. Good beds, fabulous staff, excellent wi-fi and Carter was impressed because he could actually watch some english TV without fuzziness etc.. In fact he and I watched Madagascar 2 late into the night – awesome. If anyone is planning to go (and is on an economic budget like us) then stay at the Dalat 24h Guesthouse and the breakfast is just fine too.

We decided that because we had cut our time too short in Dalat that we would just shop although we didn’t end up buying anything! We found some Asics shoes for Carter which fitted perfectly but had too much purple on them for his liking. We found genuine North Face jackets (really cool two in ones) for both Dave and Carter but not the right colour for Carter and there were none for me so decided we would purchase three when we get to Hanoi. The cost would be just on $NZ60-70 each. Something you cannot buy in NZ for anything like this price and we need them for the cold weather we are about to face when hitting the UK, Canada etc. However, our backpacks are getting so heavy now the taxi drivers are groaning at the weight when they lift them so we will have to get rid of some gear I think. Not sure how to do this though when we have to have gear for all seasons!

The morning we left Dalat we got a taxi to take us to the Datanla Waterfalls where we could go on a 500m roller coaster and see the waterfalls etc. Well I can tell you I was pooing my pants on that roller coaster. Here’s a montage of the cool, calm and not so collected.

The cool, calm and not so collected!!!

Safety features – a simple shoulder strap holding you in on 45degree drops and turns and somehow the buggy thing stays on.

Another bus and we are on a 4 hour journey to Nha Trang.

Nha Trang

First impressions again – we needed to be staying here at least two nights and not the one.

The beach was beautiful and clean – the water clean but with just the odd bit of plastic floating by. Given that we had just the one full day in Nha Trang we decided to go to Vinpearl Land – we missed out on going to Waterbom Park in Bali and Carter was keen for some action.

In the cable car on our way to Vinpearl Land

Vinpearl Land – similar to a great big Water Park and Universal Studios in one which is on a separate island connected by cable car.  We all had a ball and because of the heat spent most of our time in the Water Park on the slides, pool and lazy river. The aquarium housed many different species of fish and also showed off a few really BIG living spiders. Boy am I glad they are behind the glass! Scary…

Carter had a great time challenging Mum and Dad to various water slides, scary drops and of course Bumper cars! Mum was a bit reluctant at times…the old heart isn’t quite what it used to be but she can still work those bumper cars! :-)! And do you know what – there were absolutely no queues for anything. We did not have to wait for anything which was a pleasant change..

Back in Nha Trang almost all signs in the tourist areas are written in both Vietnamese and Russian. We have been told there is a direct flight from Russia to Nha Trang for a very cheap price and the Russians do not need to get a visa.Whether this is true of course we don’t know but we did note a very high percentage of the tourist population were Russian.

Time to hit the road again on another sleeper bus – this time leaving at 7pm arriving Hoi An at 7.30am!!! Eeek this is going to be interesting…