Just Another Day for You and Me (and 3 teenagers) in Paradise ...

So, 2 weeks ago we spent the weekend in the hugely popular coastal tourist destination of Mui Ne. (and I made the kids write their blog posts as soon as we got back) Yes, it was lovely, yes it was relaxing, yes absolutely http://www.fullmoon-village.com was the nicest holiday accommodation we've ever stayed in but sadly my memory of this wonderful family holiday will always be tarnished by the view of the the trash strip along the coast form the edge of our resort AS FAR AS THE EYE COULD SEE. Not only was it unsafe to wander bare-foot along the sand but I felt sad for the locals who clearly don't have the infrastructure to deal with their own litter. Their children will inherit a location that tourists will have abandoned. I even spent an hour bent over in the hot sun filling a big bag (that was lying on the beach) with trash myself much to the amusement of my husband watching from the 2nd floor of the beachfront restaurant over his ice coffee. Unsure what to do with my heavy plastic sack of rubbish, I ended up leaving it on the edge of the clean beach area hoping that whoever cleans it might find it and dispose of it appropriately. It bothers me that in a country where people mostly don't recycle, staff hand out plastic bottles of water and individually wrapped wet wipes to every passenger on every train every day. I will return to beautiful NZ with a new respect for our civil engineers who oversee waste management and the important job they do, even in our larger population centres, keeping the place tidy! Hey, I know someone who speaks Vietnamese and wants to study civil engineering .....

Back to our fantastic resort - one of the best assets at Full Moon is their "beach boy" - the guy who spent an hour in the surf, which was so warm, teaching our girls to "pa-dool, pa-dool, always pa-dool" on their stand-up paddle-boards. He was really enthusiastic and friendly - I told his boss to keep him and we gave him a good tip. He had offered to teach them for just $10 but earnt way more than that. If we hadn't been having so much fun mainly doing nothing we could have tried wind-surfing or taken the catamaran sail boat out. We also could have gone exploring and discovered the amazing sand dunes that we read about in the Lonely Planet Guide after we got back but we had such a lovely place to stay and only 2 nights so we decided to just stay.

Ok, this isn't our beach boy and we didn't do this but we saw lots of boats like this!

Holiday in Mui Ne

5 am, still dark, and we are cramming down a hurried breakfast to catch a train that we will be stuck on for four hours. Yet despite how it sounds, I had been looking forward to this day for weeks! We were going to Mui Ne (pronounced Nay) to stay in an amazing villa for a weekend of relaxing.

After an evening of unpacking and a good night's sleep with big fluffy pillows, we hit the beach. Because the conditions weren't right for surfing, we had decided the previous day to have SUP lesions. SUP stand for Stand Up Paddle boarding. Once I got the hang of it, it was awesome! My favorite part was at the end when I caught a wave to bring myself into shore and found my self surfing smack bang in the middle of a school of fish!! So cool.

Isaac when he saw the snake.

The next day we discovered our mistake. As well as the sore muscles I had expected, we were all burnt cherry red, Isaac on the legs, Amberly and I on the face and arms. Despite this, I went beach-combing the next day, collecting some beautiful shells. On my way back to the villa with Isaac, I heard a sudden gasp, followed by the odd sight of Isaac dancing a jig! After a brief interval, I saw what had caused the spectacular spectacle. A long, thin, venomously green vine snake that Isaac had inadvertently stepped on. Thankfully they cannot kill you, and most can't even seriously hurt you. But as Isaac did not realize this at the time, he did what is only natural for a frighted 17 year old boy. He danced the jig, hooting like an owl, trying to get away from the unknown danger of the vine snake.

After a final breakfast, buffet like the one before, we packed up and hoped on the train that would take us back to Ho Chi Minh. As soon as we walked in the door, Amberly said she missed the villa. so will we all, and the trip to Mui Ne is now one of the highlights of our trip to Vietnam.

Great Snakes!

On the 28th of March, we all went to Mui Ne to celebrate Dad's birthday, as it is supposedly the nicest beach in Vietnam and fairly close to where we live. As we shambled out of the house at 6:30 in the morning though, we weren't really thinking about celebrating. Or anything else for that matter. We were catching the train for the first time since coming to Vietnam, so we were all interested to see what it would be like. There were a lot of xe oms (motorcycle taxis) outside the station hoping to catch a customer from amidst the people entering and leaving the station. Inside bore similarities to a Vietnamese airport, but we were only inside briefly before exiting to hop on the train. The carriage could have been worse; the seats were comfortable and everybody had one.

When we arrived (into a climate that was even hotter than HCMC!) the taxi we caught took us to the wrong place, a second beach resort owned by the same company as the one we were going to. Luckily, there was a free bus to the right place, and after a short wait and a drink we walked into our three bedroom villa. It was very impressive, even better than our apartment! Sadly, Dad was the only one taking photos, so we have but a few.

It was right next to the large pool, and if that wasn't enough we had our own pool in the garden!

 In the background above, you can see me sitting on our Vietnamese trampoline, made in 1200 a.d. As the spring wasn't invented until the late 1400s, they were made of wood and didn't really catch on for another few hundred years.

After enjoying the pool, we went for dinner at the resort's restaurant, where we would be eating all our meals. At the end, they told us that as it was our first day they had a "special dessert" for us. As it turns out, it was actually a birthday cake! They had looked at our passports and seen that it was Dad's birthday, so it was free. The staff were all very helpful and friendly. Makes you wonder what else they now know about us though...

Next morning, we went down to the delicious (and complimentary) Western-style buffet, where we met a family of Americans who were also staying there. Once we'd eaten, we headed to the beach for the first time. The area directly in front of the resort was lovely, but just 20 meters to either side rubbish stretched along the sand as far as the eye could see. Environmental protection doesn't have much publicity in Vietnam, and any popular spot quickly becomes trashed.

I took out a kayak and paddled around while the girls had a go at stand-up-paddleboarding. I was helpful and encouraging (yeah right), and we stayed out there for an hour or two. We were all pretty badly sunburned when we finished, and my legs were red and sore for the next three days.

Ambling back to the villa whilst reading my kindle, I failed to notice a long, writhing snake right in front of me. In fact I continued to not notice it until I actually stepped on it! As soon as I noticed, I rather hurriedly hopped around trying to create some space between me and it (I may have let off a hoot or two) and Lena screamed, which attracted the attention of one of the staff. As soon as I got clear, I recognized it as a vine snake, non-venomous, and might have even tried to pick it up had the attendant killed it with a long pole. I wish I'd had my camera on me.

Apart from that exciting incident, not much else happened while we were there; after lunch and another swim in the larger pool we rested for the remainder of the day, then the next morning we packed and left after breakfast. The train ride seemed to take longer, maybe because we were all tired and had missed lunch, but we all made it back safe and sound.