Good morning SE Asia!: 01/12/2013 - 03/12/2013

Mui Ne as we got to know it is really just a strip of hotels ranging from cheap to 5-star all you can eat places fronting onto a few km's of golden sand famous for the conditions making it ideal for kiteboarding. The road behind the hotels stretches for the length of the beach with shops selling all the beachwear and equipment you could imagine, restaurants loaded to the gunnels with fresh seafood and the odd jewellery and trinket shop to lure in the Russian ladies. The small town of Mui Ne itself lies at the Northern end of the strip and is still primarily a fishing village.

I was hoping to dip a toe in the water and take a Kiteboarding lesson but the cost was prohibitively expensive, at least £300 to get the first lesson that actually had you surfing, not just practising with the kite on the beach or in the water. You can do it in Europe for less than that.

The beach was good for swimming in the morning with calmer water behind rolling waves that crashed onto the sand and were fun to struggle past. There were a handful of optimistic local surfers out in the mornings too. The wind picked up each day at around 1pm providing the wind required for kiteboarding and consequently really rough seas. It was very entertaining to watch the kiteboarder's tricks and wipe-outs but also less sporty tourists getting dunked and dragged by the waves as they tried to get past the waves or to take the posing holiday snap in the water. One evening a couple came into the restaurant beside our hotel and took the table next to the steps to the beach which plainly had wet sand below it. It was only a matter of time before one particularly huge wave made it past the wall and over them both, violently smashing their food and wine onto the floor and the wife’s lap and putting the guys fag out just as he was lighting it. Hilarious and at least the guy had a laugh about it too. I reckon the staff put that table there on purpose.

We had a bit of beach time over the couple of days and I considered renting out a surfboard for a morning, but in the end decided not to bother as the breaks were just too short and even the good guys were hardly getting any time stood up at all. I decided to save my next attempt for somewhere more popular for actual surfing, somewhere with a beginners wave that I can flounder around on without an audience hopefully.

We tried a few different places to eat but did have 3 or 4 meals in the awesome plastic chair restaurant next door, there was loads of good cheap food to to choose from. One other roadside restaurant that did seafood from a shack had a whole skinned alligator over the coals. We did not see anyone trying it and it was still complete at the end of the night as we walked past.

The hotel was good and we did consider taking a fourth night (so we would have a third full day in the sunshine), but decided to press on as there are better beaches coming up but also the 'scene' of Mui Ne was wearing a bit thin. I.e. for every 1 well meaning kiteboarder or surfer, there are 5 image obsessed twatpackers who wear the clothes and sunglasses and talk total rubbish - constantly judging each other and conversing through pretences. So many guys with 'unique' tattoos and beards that 3 out of 5 could pass for the same person in a line up no problem. Farcical. Or maybe I am just getting old?