Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - Wednesday afternoon in Mui Ne Vietnam. I've spent the last 6 days just completely relaxing. The whirlwind of Bangkok and Saigon seems a long way off.
>> Check out photos from the trip
Tomorrow I head back to both. Mui Ne is a small fishing village about 200 km northeast of Saigon and it's beautiful. Long stretches of sandy beaches with warm water and slow breakers. The temperature has remained a constant 80 with a nice breeze most of the day and never goes up or down more than a few degrees.
The people here are as friendly as I've encountered on my trip. I'm sure some of that is because I'm staying at a resort, but the same thing happened when I wandered into the village. That was a little outside my comfort zone, but, hey that's what adventures are supposed to be right?
The village is no resort. It's not often that you can find yourself in the middle of a village and be the only one of your type. It's a little discomforting. The people gave some surprised looks, I'm sure not too many westerners wander though here. The school children were just getting out of school and were trying their "Hello, how are you?"'s on me. I want to scoop about 20 of them up and bring them home. (just kidding mr. immigration man...)
I've been spoiling myself while here.
Here's the daily schedule:
- Wake: 4 - 5 - 6 AM
- Breakfast: 7:30
- Massage (1) - 9AM
- Lunch - Noon
- Massage (2) 2PM
- Dinner 6PM
- Bed 10PM
The rest of the time is spent reading, swimming and shell collecting on the beach. I know, I warned you, I've been spoiling myself.
I've been doing "two-a-days" with the massage ladies on the beach. They live right next to the resort and do this in addition to the normal everyday tasks their lives require. I got up this morning and saw them helping their husbands reel in the fishing nets that they work right out in front of the resort. Another thing I've noticed, most people I've seen work about 14 hours a day and don't seem to think anything of it. (hope my boss doesn't read this part).
The food is still amazing, I've become addicted to a papaya salad and a Vietnamese Chicken Salad that I'll try to recreate when I get back. That and tons of fresh tropical fruit. That one's going to be a little tough to pull off. The Coffee in this part of the world is very good too. They aren't doing the "designer roast" kind of thing, but they've been doing this for hundreds of years, no need to improve what isn't broken...
I return to Thailand tomorrow for another few days before the return flight next weekend. Hope I can remember how to "spin" the Hits!
Thanks for checking out my travel blog.
~ Brad Dolbeer
