Beach getaway...

The long weekend in Mui Ne was great, and exactly what I needed after being tired out by the grade 1 class.  A group of teachers rented one of the school's buses for the weekend, which took us to Mui Ne.  Since it was a holiday weekend, there was a lot of traffic on the roads.  After 6 hours or so on the bus, we were dropped off at our hotel.  The hotel was located right on the beach, however there was not much of a sandy beach.  The tide was high and no one was out laying on the sand.  Luckily, the hotel had a nice pool located steps away from the beach.


The pool, where we spent a lot of our time!

Compared to Ho Chi Minh City, Mui Ne seemed so relaxed.  There was one main drag lined with palm trees where the hotels and restaurants were located.  There were still motorbikes (this is Vietnam!) but nothing compared to HCMC.  It was nice walking down the sidewalk and not worrying about motorbikes driving up behind me to park!

Besides lounging by the pool and taking a dip in the South China Sea, we visited Mui Ne's famous sand dunes.  The first dunes we drove to were called the "red dunes" because of the sand's reddish colour.  We were immediately harassed by kids trying to sell us pieces of plastic for us to sit on to slide down the dunes.  We took some pretty cool pics jumping off the dunes, but didn't stay at the red dunes for long.  We heard that the "white dunes" were further from town, and more impressive... but little did we know how amazing the white dunes would be!

The Red Dunes

 The white dunes were so vast and high.  I felt like I was in the middle of a desert!  We all kept asking ourselves "are we still in Vietnam?!?"  ... It honestly felt like we were in Egypt or some desert in the Middle East.  We rented ATVs at the white dunes so we could easily get up and down them.  When we were at the dunes, the sun was setting.  The whole experience was a bit surreal.  I definitely had a great time and would love to go back to Mui Ne again!

ATVs on the White Dunes

The White Dunes