This is part 2 of our Vietnam holiday - Mui Ne

On Easter Sunday we headed to a beach resort area - Mui Ne - only a couple of hundred kms from HCM City but takes about 4 hours because of the heavy traffic in and beyond the city and then the two lane 'highway' also with heavy traffic, including thousands of motorbikes.

Mui Ne is listed together with Phan Thiet in tourist books and brochures. Pan Thiet is a bigger town - it didn't appear to have much to recommend it though - a decent sized shopping/commercial centre and a market. The beach resorts are in Mui Ne - along the road that goes to Phan Thiet.
Mui Ne itself consists of a long road that runs for several miles along the seafront - hotels and resorts all along the beach side and bars, restaurants, travel agents and various small shops along the other. I guess it's sort of like a MUCH smaller version of the quiet end of Hua Hin - Takiab Beach - where the area is still quite local but becoming a tourist place.
Mui Ne runs on tourism and has lots of travel agents, massage places etc.
The resorts range across the spectrum from mid-range to upmarket and all are low rise buildings or bungalow type - all look pretty impressive.
From the road, you pass the beautiful gardens and either their restaurants or just the reception area... most of the rooms and restaurants are closer to the water and hidden from the road by lush vegetation.

A few kilometres up the road there are massive sand dunes..... red sand dunes, yellow sand dunes and white sand dunes as well as a red canyon and a fairy stream (like a shallow stream running through a mini canyon and you can walk through and along this stream).

There were tourists from many countries with Russians in the majority as well as lots of French and Germans. Menus are in English and Russian so that says something about the volume of Russians that visit (a bit like the restaurants in Pattaya with menus and signage in Swedish).
Food options abound in Mui Ne ....from traditional Vietnamese to European and also burgers, sandwiches etc. - none of the usual fast food places, thank heaven. All were either family-run local restaurants or bigger Italian/other European restaurants.
Unlike Hua Hin, everything is so cheap... we went to a small restaurant and had a plate of vegetables with noodles and another with prawns and rice + fruit juices for a total of about 6 USD.

One thing that struck us about Vietnam in general was the lovely French-style bread and cakes.... not just in Ho Chi Minh, but also in this little town.

We stayed at Bamboo Village for the first three days. It was lovely.... right on the beach, two tropical pools and an open air restaurant all in a very lush setting with beautiful gardens full of palm trees, colourful shrubs and lily ponds complete with fish and frogs.
We had a beachfront bungalow - a few steps across the soft lawn to the sand. It was very deluxe with all mod cons, a pressed bamboo ceiling and a bathroom with a floor made of pebbles and a retractable perspex ceilng. Very nice.
It was soooo windy there but that reduced the otherwise hot temperatures (low - mid 30s in March but no rain). Every day the kiteboarders were out on the water on miniboards with colourful kites towing them along. We watched them from our terrace or while having lunch in the restaurant.

The banana pancakes were great! so were the pineapple pancakes! diet later.
Breakfast here was buffet style - plenty of fresh fruit, cereal, Asian choices, egg station and a cook constantly producing fresh waffles.

When we originally booked Bamboo Village, the seafront bungalow was only available for 3 days and we had to either move to a bamboo bungalow in the garden or move to another resort. As we didn't know how far back in the garden we'd be, we chose to go to another resort - the rather new Sea Lion a few hundred metres up the road.
Here we stayed in a Seaview Deluxe room. It was in a 4 or 5 storey hotel-style building (with lift). There are several of these buildings in the resort and ours was the closest to the water.
The room itself was huge with full length windows showing the uninterrupted views to the sea and also overlooked the pool. There was a huge comfy bed with good linen, a side area with sofa and a couple of chairs, a good bathroom (shower over bath + another walk-in shower) room safe, cable tv and good blockout curtains.

At night we saw the hundreds of little fishing boats out on the horizon and in the morning some brought their catch in to shore. There was also an infinity-edge pool with sunbeds and a poolside thatched-roof bar all overlooking the sea.
Breakfast had plenty of choices - both Asian and western- including muesli, juices, hot meat and vegetable dishes, decent bread and rolls, salads and an egg station.

Food was good in both places but tourism is still fairly new here so although the staff try hard, they don't always get it right because their English is not good. You just need to be patient.

After five days of penance in Mui Ne we went back to Ho Chi Minh City on Friday and stayed overnight before flying out on Saturday. While there I had a manicure, pedicure and haircut (total cost around 8USD!!)

With its lovely beach resorts, good tourism opportunities and friendly people, Vietnam is a good destination for those wanting a new experience.......so glad we came here !!!! (initial flight notwithstanding of course) There were plenty of families holidaying in Mui Ne - nice pools and beach for the kids and the place is very laid back so not a difficult place to take young children.
Perhaps teens and young adults who are not into the beach or kiteboarding might find it a bit quiet as there isn't a club or bar scene, cinema or other loud, noisy activities, but it's ideal for couples or singles of any age who want to relax by day and have a quiet dinner and or, few drinks at night. Chill out territory.