Mui Ne
Straight after work on Saturday we caught the bunk-bed equipped bus from Saigon up the coast to the fishing town come resort of Mui Ne. I was with a motley crew of Hanh and Kel (both Vietnamese), a young Kiwi English tutor Alice and Jonas; the Ozzy surfer dude.
Although not as developed as other sea resorts like Da Nang and Nha Trang, Mui Ne is well known amongst my Vietnamese friends. It’s most famous for its red sand dunes.
We were a motley crew of me,We spent the weekend eating delicious seafood, hanging out at the beach and we visited the Fairy Stream; which is a short, shallow stream people walk along to view the sandstone rock formations that line it. Vietnam is pretty awful for tourist traps. In Da Lat when I visited last year I got used to the formula; pay to enter, be surrounded by street vendors which detract from the thing you actually came to see, pay for a photo with someone in a costume, be deafened by karaoke. I was however very surprised to see all this in a stream!
The Holy King of the Sky
There is a wonderful anime-looking mural near where I’m staying of a guy on a horse wielding bamboo as a lance. I’ve always been curious about it. I finally got around to asking Chu and she told me it’s the legendary boy hero Thánh Gióng.
The full legend is quite interesting. His lance broke while the child fought the invading Chinese so he picked up some bamboo and proceeded to crush his foe. After this feat, he rode his horse straight up to heaven which is where he got the title The Holy King of Heaven. He seems to be a national hero here, something like King Arthur is in Britain.
Eastward Ho! 