Day 5: Mui Ne

We woke up SUPER early this morning to catch the 6:50am train from Ho Chi Minh to Pan Thiet!  Luckily, we made it there on time, and there were plenty of seats available!  Thank goodness!

We showed our tickets to the train attendants, and they motioned for us to get onto train car number 1.  So, we quickly walked to the front of the train and jumped on.

We got nice and cozy in our seats…

…and were pleasantly surprised at the train! It was much nicer than we had heard, which was GREAT!

The countryside was lovely!  Super lush and green!

This mountain actually had a rice terrace cut out near the top!

Before I left for vacation, I downloaded the last season of the biggest loser and Everybody Loves Raymond to watch on the long train rides!  I love those shows!

It wasn’t until about 2 hours into our journey that the train attendant came to check our tickets and told us we were ON THE WRONG TRAIN!  NNNNNNOOOOOOOOO!!!  We had no idea whether or not we had even gone in the right direction! Luckily, the guy sitting behind us spoke English and told us that we needed to get off at the next station and wait for the right train to come!  Oy Vey!

So, there we were, in the middle of nowhere at Muong Man train station!

Literally, the middle of nowhere…

As we were walking, Aaron spotted this GIGANTIC dead scorpion!  EEEkkkk!

We found out our train would come in an hour, so we decided to make the best of it and walk through the tiny town to get some pictures of the locals who live there!   These were some of the most friendly people I’ve ever come in contact with in Asia!

These little girls were so sweet and shy, but their grandmother pushed them outside to say hello to us!  She was exstatic that we wanted to snap some pictures of her grand daughters!

We were both pretty hungry at this point, so we sat down here, 

at this neighborhood market for some lunch…

Unfortunately, it was, hands down, the most disgusting cup of Ramen Noodles I’ve ever tasted! You know how the noodles start out dry and crunchy?  Well, even after the hot water was added, they kinda stayed hard, but turned to a rubber consistency! Haha…

“V” for Vietnam!

We caught the train and made it to Pan Thiet 40 minutes later!  While we were on the train, we met the sweetest English family who had recently sold their business and had bought “around the world tickets” and were traveling with their 4 and 2 year old kids through south east Asia, America, and Australia for 6 months!  Yes please!

When we got to Pan Thiet, we jumped on motorbike taxis and went the 20 kilometers into Mui Ne.

Within 10 minutes, we were checking into Hong Di Bungalows!

My little bungalow, on the beach, was only $10.00 a night!

We spent most of the afternoon in the beach chairs, watching the wind surfers,

soaking our feet into the sand, and relaxing!

The view wasn’t all that bad either! J

We walked down the beach to a place called Joe’s where we had some drinks under straw hut umbrellas on the beach!  Then, we decided to rent a scooter and drive over to the famous Mui Ne red sand dunes and stopped here, at this beach!

This is actually a garden, where plants are growing in the sand!  I never knew you could do that!

We had to be extra careful not to hit the ginormous cows that were ROMAING FREE in the roads!

We drove another 19 kilometers to the red sand dunes, which were some of the coolest things I’ve ever seen!  They’re huge and go on for at least a mile!

The sun was going down, so we had to leave the sand dunes shortly after Aaron snapped this pictures. 

We drove back into town and stopped in at this restaurant for some fresh seafood!

Prawns anyone?

How about some delicious fresh fish?!

Tomorrow we’re planning to just relax a bunch, check out a waterfall, and hopefully make it back to the red sand dunes to explore a bit more!  J

Day 4: Back to Ho Chi Minh!

I woke up at 6:00 am sharp this morning!  Haven’t done that in… well, I can’t remember the last time I was up that early!  I grabbed my laptop and headed out to the hammock to write yesterday’s blog entry. J  I was met by the daughter of the host family who offered to make me breakfast!  YUM!

Within about 10 minutes, I was feasting on delicious eggs, baguettes and bananas on the front porch of the house!

Check out this traditional Vietnamese drip coffee! Luckily, with a little milk and sugar it was just how I like it!

We hung out here until about 10am, and then our host took us by motorbike to her cousin’s home stay down the road. We were hoping to be right on the water, and as she said, it was “right on the water!” So, needless to say, we were really excited! But then we got there, and it wasn’t quite what we were thinking. Granted, the rooms were AWESOME, like tree house bedrooms…

but the rest of the place wasn’t somewhere where we wanted to spend the next day and night, especially when there are so many more awesome places to see in the country!  So, we waved goodbye to the Mekong Delta canals…

packed up and headed to the street, where we caught a motorbike taxi to take us to the Mien Thay bus stop!

 Good bye Mekong!

The bus ride was a mere 40 kilometers, but took over 2 hours, because they literally drove 10 miles an hour and picked up anyone standing on the side of the road!  This was NOT a tourist bus… we were definitely on the local bus!  We didn’t see any foreigners the whole trip!  We did however see some awesome old Vietnamese women!

As we were driving, I was noticing more and more restaurants with hammocks… Then, as I looked closer, more restaurants had hammocks with short tables next to them than actual tables and chairs! I LOVE IT!

This guy was carrying chickens in bags on his scooter!

After changing busses in Mien Tay and getting back to Cho Lon, we took a taxi over to Pham Gulau (sp?) where we found a cheap hostel near the park!   We were exhausted at this point!

After taking a little rest, we headed out to the famous Binh Thanh Market, which sold everything from custom made Vietnamese sandals, dried fruit, knock off purses/ wallets/ and jeans, perfume, makeup, custom tailored suits, scarves, jade, pearls, silver, Buddhist souvenirs and just about every travel souvenirs you could ever want…

Since you may be wondering... Mom, I KNOW you are.  I'll tell you what I bought!  3 pairs of super cute and comfy CalvinKlein boy short/undies: $2.00 ea, a bottle of Chloe perfume (2.5oz): $13.00, 2 handmade toys for my nephews: $1.00 ea, and a Vietnamese handmade bookmark for $1.00.  I wanted to buy more, but the market was closing, and we were rushing through to try to see it all!  Sorry mom, I tried to find you a dress or some jewelry, but to no avail!  Ill keep looking! :)  Aaron promises there will be plenty more places to find you something!

This lady was sitting outside the market!  Wanna know how much you weight?  Well, for a pretty penny, you can find out!  I’d personally rather not!

People aren’t the only ones around here who pile onto scooters!  Sometimes dogs go for rides too!

The streets in Ho Chi Minh are outrageous!  There are no traffic lights and drivers just somehow manage their way through oncoming and ‘sidecoming’ traffic!  I made that word up!  To add to the craziness, pedestrians cross the street too!  It’s amazing more accidents don’t happen!

I took this video with my iphone, just to prove it!

We left the market around dusk, in search of some delicious Vietnamese food!  Unfortunately, we were in a pretty touristy area, so we had to walk a ways, in search of the perfect authentic spot!

Check out this temple we spotted along the way!

We managed to find this dinner spot, which was just what we were looking for!

Delicious noodles and pork for a mere $1.50!

After dinner, we climbed up to the top of a building to a deserted floor near the top to snap some pictures of the roundabout in the middle of the area! I’ll load this picture later! It’s on Aaron’s camera… SORRY!

We found this cute little alley in the backpacking district to stop and have some drinks to top off the day!

1 margarita, 1 beer, and 1 coffee! Definitely a strange combo, but yummy none the less, and the atmosphere was perfect… romantic, quiet, and comfy!

My margarita came with a green cherry! I never knew those existed! Aaron said he could tie the stem with his tongue, so I made him prove it! VERY impressive, I might add!

One of my favorite things about Vietnam is the food, and the fact that it's almost always cooked in plain sight!  This particular restaurant's kitchen was actually on the opposite side of the alley, and completely open for all to see!  I love stuff like this!

Tomorrow, early morning, we're heading to Pan Thiet/ Mui Ne for some much needed relaxing beach time! 

Can't wait!