Freya and I had the luck (still not sure if I'm being sarcastic when I say luck or not) of being all the way in the back, where it was just five sleepers across, with no aisles. Apart from Freya and I, there was a British guy next to me, then a Vietnamese guy next to him, then a Dutch guy on the other side. The Vietnamese guy was really friendly (even though he had practically no English), and kept laughing and making jokes that nobody understood, but laughed along with anyways. The atmosphere was quite fun in the backseat, even if it was cramped at times. The most comfortable way to sleep on these buses was on your side, and the seats weren't very long or wide, so at a few points I woke up to notice that the 5 of us were all laying on the same side, knees bent, and basically spooning each other.During the bus ride, it sunk in that I'm living in a developing country. It's easy to forget that when I'm with all of the expats in District 1 of a big city, but once we ventured out, it was easy to see the poverty in the country. There were open fires by the side of the road; lots of cattle, either roaming around or lying down, but not fenced in; and houses that looked like they'd fall over at any moment. Despite this, most any person that we passed looked happy. The other daunting thing about the bus ride was that our driver wouldn't slow down while going through towns - he'd only honk his horn - and was whipping through towns and passing motos, cars, and other buses going about 50.
As far as I can tell, drivers will honk their horn when:
- they want to pass somebody
- somebody is passing them
- somebody is pulling out in front of them and they don't want them to
- the person at the light in front of them takes more than half a second to go after the light changes
- or whenever they damn well feel like it.
Our bus driver was constantly honking, which made it a bit difficult to get as much rest as we would've liked on the bus ride. We arrived in Mui Ne safe and sound and went to grab some lunch and plan the rest of our time there.
To clarify - Freya and I decided to come to Mui Ne about two days before we left, and hadn't planned a single thing. We had the name of a few resorts in our guidebooks, and a hotel that another one of the teachers was staying at, but that was about it. We had no idea what to expect, or how long we'd be there.
We sat down and started calling the resorts in the guidebook that sounded affordable and nice, and for every single one, were either told that they were full, or that the price was $50 and up. It was a bit discouraging, since we were counting on finding a nice room for about $20. Our waiter came up to us and told us that it was high season (Tet), so everything was full and prices were high, and gave us a map with lots of different hotels and their phone numbers. We scanned for the cheap ones and started calling, but got the same answers (full or at least $50). After a while, the waiter returned, gave us a pamphlet of a place nearby, said that the owners were eating a few tables over, and asked if we wanted him to see if they had room. We said yes, then after looking at the map and seeing that the price listed for this particular resort was $120+ per night, panicked a bit. The waiter came back, said they'd give us a room for $45, and it was right down the road. It was more expensive than we wanted, but it looked really nice, and we didn't have much choice, so we took it.
The resort was reallllly nice. The room was very new and clean, and the resort itself was right on the beach, complete with a bar (and people to come around and ask if you wanted anything to drink) swimming pool, and free breakfast (which consisted of coffee or tea, a buffet, and the option to order eggs or crepes). We spent the first day trying to figure out what to do, since the trip was costing us about twice as much as we'd planned on. We decided to go for a walk along the beach and spend a while watching the kite surfers (Mui Ne is known for its kite surfing, though that also tends to make it a very touristy place, as we all know that Charlie don't surf). The afternoon consisted of sitting by the beach reading, snoozing, and watching the kite surfers. I ended up with a bit of a sunburn, but it was so relaxing sitting in front of the beach, being out of the city for a while that I couldn't bring myself to move into the shade.
After our relaxing afternoon, Freya and I decided it was time for dinner. We headed for a place that my guide book had recommended, though after walking about 3 kilometers and finding nothing at the address listed in the book, we popped into the closest decent-looking restaurant around. The entire time we couldn't stop laughing about how poorly planned the whole trip was, but were also pleasantly surprised that it was going so well. On the way home after dinner, we stopped by a bar on the beach for a few drinks. While we were sitting talking about how relaxing Mui Ne was, but also about how much we missed Saigon, an Australian girl came up to our table, sat down, and started talking about how she was traveling alone and lonely, and wanted to sit with us. We talked with her for a while, and she invited the two guys who were sitting at the table behind us to join us (Chris from the UK, and some guy from Canada). We sat for a while, sharing travel stories and advice, and "enjoying" the karaoke going on behind us. We found out that Chris was headed to Saigon within a few days, so before we left, we gave him our contact information and told him to give us a call when he got in.
The next day was officially the Lunar New Year (and Valentine's Day), and Freya and I woke up to our complimentary breakfast at our resort. The entire day, everybody was wishing us a happy New Year. It's actually quite cute, because people here don't say New Year, but ratherHappy New Year, as if that's what it's called. Similarly, It's not your birthday, it's your happy birthday (as in, my happy birthday is August 1st.) When Freya and I were buying our bus tickets, the man at the agency was explaining "because it's Happy New Year, the traffic is slow, so the bus might be late." It's amusing, and I'm not surprised that none of the students' teachers have tried to correct them (although maybe they have, unsuccessfully), because when you hear it, you can't help but laugh (in a culturally respectful way, of course).
We spent the rest of the morning going for a walk on the beach and lounging by the pool at our hotel again. After lunch we headed back to the resort since we'd booked a tour go to Fairy Springs, and the sand dunes near Mui Ne.
The Fairy Springs were really neat looking - it was basically a kilometer-long walk through a small stream a few inches deep, but with cool-looking rock formations all around. I was surprised that the majority of the people there were Vietnamese, and the children especially were absolutely loving it. As Freya described the experience, it was kind of like an water park, but "without the thrill". At the end of the spring, there was a small waterfall. After snapping a few pictures, we turned around, walked back down, collected our shoes, and got in the Jeep to go to the white dunes.On the way to the white dunes we stopped so that we could take some pictures of the fishing village of Mui Ne. There were hundreds of boats, and the pictures don't really do it justice, but it was very peaceful looking. After our quick break, we headed on to the white dunes. It was weird seeing
a desert after seeing beach only a few minutes before, but it was also gorgeous. It was also a bit odd since people don't typically tend to think of deserts when they hear Vietnam...It was my first experience in a desert, and the vastness of it was astounding. We rented a hard plastic sheet so that we could go sledding down the dunes, but after lugging it all the way to the top, found that it didn't really work, but rather just sunk into the sand, resulting in a disappointingly slow ride down. Freya tried to go just sitting on it, and when I saw how slowly she was moving, I decided to try going head first, but that was just as disastrous, and both of us ended up with sand everywhere. We were laughing about it until we realized that we 
were catching the 2am bus that night for Saigon, had already checked out of our hotel, and wouldn't be able to shower until we got home...After we finished at the white dunes, the tour took us to the red dunes for sunset. Both the white dunes and the red dunes were beautiful, but I think I preferred the red dunes because the ocean was visible from them - very bizarre. We watched the sunset there, took lots of pictures, Freya failed at an attempt to make a sand angel, and headed back to the Jeep again (we decided not to bother trying with the sand sledding this time...)
We got back in time for dinner and went to a bar/restaurant that was open 24
hours and showed movies, since we had to wait for our 2am bus. We got dinner there and proceeded to stay for six hours, watching a few different movies and talking a few other tourists (some were waiting for buses also leaving fairly late). At 2, we hopped on our bus, immediately passed out, and woke up in Saigon at 6:30, ready to shower.
We still have the rest of the week off, so Freya and I have been taking full advantage of not having to teach...we bought the box set of 24 (all seven seasons), so we've been watching that and trying not to get too addicted (we limit ourselves to four episodes in a row, after which we force ourselves to go outside for at least ten minutes or so before coming back to watch the next four episodes that we allow ourselves...). We met up with Chris last night for dinner, a few drinks and a game of pool, and after meeting an Australian and another American at the bar and sharing jokes, we decided to call it a night. Today we met with Chris again for breakfast (we all had delicious western breakfasts - french toast, omelette, scrambled eggs, sausages, hashbrowns, coffee, orange juice...) and the three of us booked a half-day tour to go see the Củ Chi tunnels tomorrow morning. I'll put pictures of that up when I get back. After booking that, and feeling rather productive, we went to the movie theater in District 5 where they show Avatar in 3D and bought tickets to see it tomorrow night. Afterwards, we wandered around Chinatown for a bit and found a nice little cafe where we got juice and sat for about half an hour before the long walk back to District 1. Freya and I were both very pleased that once we ventured out of District 1, there was hardly a westerner to be seen. The nice thing about Vietnam is that you can always get a nice Sunday roast or hamburger when you want one, and hang out with westerners when you feel like it, but if you really want to get away from that, all you have to do is venture a few blocks away from the backpacker district ("the Phạm" - called this because one of the main streets in the backpacker district is Phạm Ngũ Lão). It's also nice to walk around outside of the Pham because the Vietnamese are so excited to see foreigners - just walking down the street to school (or anywhere else, for that matter), at least two Vietnamese small children (they're usually children, although today we had a few that were adults) will smile, wave, and shout "Hello!", and the smile they show you when you say Hello back is incredible.
Wow. I feel long-winded, and I've got a bit of sleep to catch up before Freya gets here to watch 24...Also, I've just posted pictures of the Tet lights on the last entry, so feel free to take a look at those!
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