Dalat and Mui Ne

Derek and I visited Dalat which considered to be the jewel of Vietnam's Central Highlands. A very green, hilly place surrounded by mountains and the temperature is perfect (no sweating). It is honeymooner's paradise. To fully enjoy Dalat's beauty you need to hire a motorbike and ride around the outskirts of town to see the countryside. We went about 16Km out......

With this motorbike adventure Derek and I found ourselves a great little town called Trai Mat Village which had THE best pagoda we've seen by far called Linh Phouc, that's about 60 years old. The exterior of the pagoda is very detailed and it was enjoyable to explore every corner of it. On the very top of the pagoda we were impressed by the view overlooking Trai Mat Village's beauty and the colour of the landscape.

Within Dalat, it's hussle and bussle as always in any asian city. Women working hard selling fruits and men hungry to take travellers on motorbike trips.

From Dalat, we caught the bus again for another 6 hours in total to Mui Ne beach. After the first 3 hours we got transferred from the big bus to a mini bus where we were the only two to travel to Mui Ne as all of the others in the big bus were heading to Nha Trang. Once transferred, Derek and I were spoilt having our very own air- conditioned mini bus all the way to Mui Ne. We continued to be spoilt while being driven along some of Vietnam's diverse natural beauty of mountains, deserts, lakes, ocean, sand dunes and well... cows..... The drive from Dalat to Mui Ne was gorgeous.... this in itself was a highlight.

You can't visit Mui Ne without visiting the red and white sand dunes. In addition, you can't escape without allowing one of the local children (in our case 3 kids) to convince you to slide down the dunes with one of their sledes. There goes another 50 000 Dong. Kids, you can't escape them. Mui Ne has a miniture version of the Grand Canyon only theirs is called the Red Canyon.

I enjoyed our little break from travelling and Mui Ne is definetly the place to do that. You can just lay on a hammock in between swaying palm trees and listening to the sound of the ocean's waves from a distance.... it's hard work but someone has to do it..

Derek has fallen in love with motorbikes and we literally drove up and down Mui Ne beach five times and it is a 22km stretch.

We had to say goodbye to Mui Ne early as our 30 day Vietnam visa is expiring today (we're extending it).... We are now in Saigon (HCMC) and so far, a great clean city.

-Uriah