Of buses, lizards, beaches, bikes and such...

Went up to Mui Ne last weekend - a small beachside town about 4 hours north of Saigon by bus.

My mates and I took the 8pm bus which, 1 hour and 2 buses later, chugged out of Saigon just after 9pm. The highlight of the trip up (apart from the entertaining habit of all vehicles in Vietnam to drive full speed on the wrong side of the road at oncoming traffic in a bizzare game of 'overtaking chicken' - the winner is the biggest vehicle so we survived intact on this occasion) was the nasty truck stop where the bus got some more petrol and I met this lizard who was keeping an eye on me while I braved the charming Vietnamese truck stop toilets.



We got in around 1am and I settled into my authentic Vietnamese (yeah right!) beachside bungalow for the night - couldn't walk the next morning because of the diabolical bed but for $7 a night for a two person room who cares!




Mui Ne is a very cool bit of the world - the absence of pollution and the fact that I could see the sky were definite highlights - but the insane motorbike ride on Saturday was fabulous. We decided to risk life and limb and hire some bikes for the day in order to head out to see the reasonably famous Mui Ne sand dunes. Hiring bikes in Mui Ne is a little different to the standard vehicle hire process - you tell the guy at the hire place you want 3 bikes and then he goes outside and commandeers the bikes of 3 of the xe om (motorbike taxi) guys! I guess it is more lucrative and easier than carting people around all day so it was a 'win-win' situation ;-)

This was the first time I had ridden by myself in Vietnam and also the first time I had ridden anything other than a scooter (which I ride in Melbourne) so the first few minutes were a sort of vertical learning curve with the xe om guys pissing themselves laughing at us - but that is de riguer for Vietnam anyway. Luckily it was a standard Vietnamese motorbike which has gears but no clutch - which made it a little less painful.

The ride (sans helmet and in t-shirt and shorts of course) went pretty smoothly for the first 10 minutes, until a wet season downpour decided to start, which we took as our hint to have a pre-trip drink and get some petrol (the 'petrol station' stand is shown below - you buy it by the pint!).



The rain didn't ease up at all - in fact it just got even more torrential so, intrepid and rather stupid explorers that we are, we decided to buy some ridiculous Vietnamese raincoats and carry on - riding through pelting rain that stung our faces - but which was still hilariously funny for some reason (guess you had to be there). The countryside around Mui Ne is quite stunning: amazing combinations of bright red earth and tropical greens. And for a very short time we were the only people around which hasn't happened since I arrived - with 84 million people here it's not that common an event.

We even met a herd of goats who were crossing the main road - and the family who was with them were pretty damn cool as well - although I scared the crap out of the little boy who must have thought I was some white dripping ogre in a blue rainsheet.





But enough rambling - the short version was that it was a lot of fun to be pootling around under my own steam for a change and to get a slice of something other than bustling city - it is easy to forget how gorgeous Vietnam is when you're in Saigon all the time (not that Saigon's not cool either - but it is more of a chaotic gritty charm than a scenic picturesque one ;-)