Mui Ne, a break for the cities' buzz.

We took the overnight train from Danang which arrived at Binh Thuan station at 12:35pm, then a 45 minutes taxi ride to Mui Ne. Mui Ne is a long bay fully developed with hotels and bars which caters mainly to the Russian tourists. These proved to be genuinely quiet and well mannered - I've always heard the opposite opinion -, so it was great hanging around them without backpackers or loud English-speaking tourists misbehaving, what made my curiosity about unknown and exotic Russia increase.

However the part of the bay where we stayed has suffered badly from erosion and there is not much beach left: there are sand bags outside the hotels to prevent further erosion, but not enough sand left to lay your towel. This was a bit of a disappointment at first, although it wouldn't be all that bad: there are lots of amazing restaurants with fresh seafood at very affordable prices, and even exotic meats in the menu such as frogs, eels, sharks and crocodiles. And then passing the Blue Ocean resort the beach has lots of sand as the winds don't reach in that direction, so one just has to rent a motorbike or take a ride to enjoy a really good beach.

We searched on google that night (travelfish) and found out that past the Mui Ne fishing village and the red dunes there were wonderful stretches of beach with hardly any people there. And so we hired a motorbike and went the next day to Nuoc Suoi, right passing Hon Rom, and had our first beach day of the trip, a well deserved rest from the Vietnam buzz. We charged batteries in our incredibly cheap Russian luxury-resort and got ready for Vietnam big city.

One last thing: the beach at Nuoc Suoi, which is at around half an hour from Mui Ne fishing village, was mostly empty, apart from some fishermen and a few turists scattered away. There are however a few developments finished and under construction, so its days as a wild natural beach are unfortunately numbered. A sign to what is coming to Vietnam, a country with hundreds of miles of coastline, which, despite its privileged climate and environment, has put development and progress first. One can only hope the best I guess.