Mui Ne - a beach resort

We are gauging the weather and doing very well. Enjoyed our trip up to Dalat and the mountain air - caught a waft of the humid sea air first. We had so much fun on a motorscooter (automatic for all the twists and turns). It was a fun adventure using the Lonely Planet map and guessing at some of the signs. We visited Tiger Falls! named for the 30or 40 foot cement made tiger...and we were the only tourists down some muddy sometimes and potholed sometimes road. We visited the coolest house in Dalat called the Crazy House - the architect was the daughter of the successor to HoChiMinh. It was built like trees and a fantasy with rooms named after animals. After a while it lacked creativity but it was fun to begin with. My kind of culture! I sure do like being our own tour guide. You never quite know what might happen or who you might meet. It makes for gret adventuring - my style.

We have come to the coast and are loving the warm sea air and the beach type life today. You know - eat, walk, read, swim and generally laze about. Hope to carry on for a couple more days - expect to ride bikes tomorrow to explore and burn a few calories so that we can eat and drink more. We have sampled one bottle of local red wine and one bottle of local white wine. Think that we will stick to beer (lagers here and huge bottles) and Vietnamese coffee. Clive likes the hot coffee and I often prefer the ice. Interesting how every country has a way of making coffee. Here it is condensed milk in the bottom of the glass and then very strong coffee often passing through a fine filter slowly. Is it really that different from American coffee, latte and so on? Anyways we are enjoying.

We are getting used to things here and really enjoying - sunshine is great, food is great, prices are great -sometimes we are a little frustrated by the obvious cheating and misunderstanding but we are learning that is life here. So funny today we ordered a sandwich (a first) and asked about the bread for it. They show us a nice French roll and we nod that's great. The sandwiches arrived with plain white bread - they were tasty but interesting communication issue. Sometimes it seems that there is agreement but the communication has been lost somewhere - sometimes it seems kind of convenient for their business like minds. Anyways it is all small stuff and everything is working out well. Other travellers have similar experiences. It keeps you on your toes a bit.

Interesting to know that 50% of the population here is under 30years of age. No wonder we see hundreds and hundreds of kids on bikes every day (the terrain is usually flat) cycling to one of the many schools - all in their uniforms.

In the hotels there is always a poster mentioning that explosives are not allowed in the room, that valuables should not be left in the room and that prostitutes are not allowed. ...at dinner tonight we observed two old French guys with two young Vietnamese girls - not a word was spoken between the genders. One girl made shapes out of the napkins and the other covered her face. The guys chatted occasionally. ...Clive suggested for a moment that maybe they are related by business...pretty sad and obvious. The massage parlours all seem pretty much above board and so I enjoyed a massage this afternoon. Relaxing.

Interesting how they keep your passport at the hotels - I guess that they might do that in France as well - but you need to remember to get it before you leave and that is a new routine for us. People we met the other day forgot theirs and that was very difficult to get back since they had already moved on. One day we got a call from reception that they needed our passport as the police might come and inspect in the middle of the night.
Another day I was sitting on the front of a big boat and so were a couple of other passengers. Suddenly the guy steering the boat says "police, get to the inside of the boat". Like all good passengers we did - and one of the workers continued to sleep in his lawn chair. A good way to get us to move.... fear of the police...how we all respond to that....
Actually we did see the cops pulling over scooters when they were not wearing helmets - a bit like our speeding tickets.

Life does look pretty prosperous here. The roads outside of the city are in top shape. There are tons of schools and tons of hotels. I don't know how they make a business - everywhere that we have been there have been rooms pretty much everywhere. Are we out of season...or are less people coming (there are lots here)??

So a couple more days on the beach and then we will pull ourselves away as the visas run out at the end of the month.