Red sand dunes, white sand dunes and the elusive red and white sand dunes.

Last week Tim and I boarded a train to Mui Ne, a beach resort close enough to Saigon for our needs and only a little further than some of the less idyllic beaches along the way and idyll was indeed what we opted for. After trundling through Vietnamese countryside we arrived at our destination to be greeted by a vomit of rain from the clouds and an energetic young taxi driver who continually nodded and smiled as he tried to tug Tim’s guitar in the direction of his chariot. We succumbed to his friendly hassling and followed him as he ran off into the rain.
We drove the 22km through Phan Thiet, which is the nearest town, and slowly the heavens showed pity on us and the rain began to ease to reveal the calm beauty of the little settlement by the coast. We spent 6 days in Mui Ne, which rolled by in a steady wave of sun, sea and tiring ourselves out by doing nothing.
On the second day we decided to hire motorbikes for a couple of days and so entered the stabs of fear that make all good holidays. I soon realised that the motorbike and I were not going to be immediate friends as firstly I struggled to find how to turn the thing on, how to keep it uprights during the attempts and how to stop my helmet sliding forward over my eyes rendering me blind on the side of a motorbike clogged street, though thankfully this did mean that I was saved having the meet the eyes of the amused Vietnamese who had draped themselves over their bikes for a rest, flaunting their close human-motorbike relationship. Eventually we set off and immersed ourselves into Vietnamese traffic, which we had been told had very few rules apart from look out for the person ahead and dodge them at all costs. Unfortunately for Tim that person was me quite a lot of the time.
After pulling quite a crowd of curious onlookers when we had stopped for petrol and not been able to undo the seat lock to access the fuel hole thing, where you put the fuel, we set off to explore the village of Mui Ne and find the ‘fairy stream’, which was a stream running through dunes with a covering of burnt orange-red sand which at the bottom gave way to pale white. As we made our way through the village, dodging chickens, school-children, negotiating a round-a-bout and gritting our teeth as a bus charged towards us on our side of the road blaring its horn furiously to let us know that it was over-taking and presumably to apologise for being on the wrong side of the road, we were unable to locate our destination on the first attempt and so dedicated ourselves to the aim of trying not to look so incompetent and not getting ourselves killed.
On the second Tim and Christie go biking trip we set off in the opposite direction to find two towers set on top of a hill, promising great views along the coast. Feeling slightly less nauseous than the first trip we arrived at our destination in the glare of the mid-day sun. We dutifully paid the entrance fee and the additional foreigners tax, which they were calling bike parking, and set off up a dirt track. The towers were old, that’s for sure and the views were indeed impressive but continuing further up the hill we found a masterpiece of a monument in a clearing surrounded by overgrown bushes and trees. It towered over us in dusty pink and yellow showing the beautific scene of an asian family basking in the glory of their socialist government, with the small boy and his father holding onto the large guns in their hands, ready and willing to fight off any threat to the system. It was glorious to behold.
Later in the day we embarked on the second attempt to find Fairy Stream we found ourselves at the red sand-dunes. Although not our original destination they provided us with adequate entertainment as we slid down the dunes on a piece of plastic, what more could you want.
For our last three days we decided to live the romantic beach dream and moved into a bungalow on the beach, which was only slightly marred by my ongoing war with the mosquito community. Needless to say I lost and my resulting battle wounds looked like I had contracted a serious skin disease.
Having returned our bikes to their owners and breathing a sigh of relief that it didn’t enter their heads to check for any scratches or dents that might have occurred during the many times I dropped the bike and I tried to alight, we booked on a jeep tour to take us to the white sand-dunes. Luckily the tour included a stop at the Fairy Stream and so on our third attempt we managed to find it, not after getting a little bit more lost as the our driver was less a tour guide and more just a man who pointed in the general direction from the road. We finally found the entrance guarded by a Vietnamese boy, who had learnt three important things in English. Firstly ‘deep water and dangerous rocks’ followed by ‘I guide you’ as he tried to lead us off. When he we refused he pulled out the last resort of ‘You give me money anyway’. We managed to avoid the deep water and dangerous rocks in the slow moving, shallow water and found our way to the waterfall at the end, with not more trolls to pay taxes to.
We then stopped at a few more tourists attractions on the way and eventually arrived at the white sand dunes, where we set off determinedly to find our Laurence of Arabia moment. The white sand-dunes were surprisingly different in that they were white instead of red. They were indeed beautiful yet I felt a little colour-blind déjà vous. We visited the red sand dunes again on our way back to ensure that we weren’t suffering from red sand withdrawal and to watch the sunset. This last sand experience was slightly marred by the increased wind which coated us in a reasonably thick layer of red sand that took quite alot of skin off during the removal process later.
So to summarise we saw alot of sand, mostly in dune form, in the option of two colours. They were nice, we slid down some.
We got the train back to Saigon in preparation for our first day at work, which is a story for another day.