The sleepy beach town

After some adventurous canyoning the earlier in the day, we reached Mui Ne late at night. Our resort was right on the beach and directly opened into the beach.

Pause Button Please

Next day we had late breakfast and headed to play in the beach. The water was rough and the waves were determined to throw us onto the shore. We took the challenge head on (or back on) and stood deep in the waters showing our backs to the sea jumping to escape every wave that came by. The waves won not once but multiple times.

There were times that when we will be thrown down to the floor by the waves and by the time we could get up another huge wave would come and push us back into the floor. Those times we wished there was a pause button that we could press to stop the waves as it did not give us any time to recover. But as the saying goes,

Time and tide, wait for no man.

Mermaid me

To do something different our group decided to bury me in the sand and create a mermaid out of me, an attempt to make me look good. When we started digging the beach, we got water at a depth of under 1 feet. I sat in the waters and a lot of sand was put on me. I found it difficult to breathe with all the weight on my chest. After a few mins, the act of being packed actually felt calming. I relaxed there while the artists were doing their job and clicking their pictures.

After about 30 mins, something inside the sand started biting me. I think it was a crab or some insect. I tried to ignore it for a while but got scared that it could become something serious. That ended the mermaid show.

Silent swimming pool

The resort had two swimming pools. One was a normal one and one was silent. In the silent pool, people were not allowed to shout or play. Kids especially were not allowed. You were only allowed to sit in or around the water, show off your body and bikini and probably read a book or doom scroll on Instagram. When people talked, they talked as if they were in a library. We went to the silent pool as it was a much bigger pool. A lot of folks from our group did not follow the rules. They were the guys in the library who talked and laughed loudly.

Shabari in Vietnam

For people who are unaware of who Shabari is, Shabari is an old women character in the epic Ramayana who is living in the forest. She offers Rama berries tasting each berry before offering to ensure that it is sweet. Rama accepted her offering, though she had given him half eaten berries, as the devotion was more important.

We went to an Indian Restaurant for lunch and after ordering all the Paneer and Naan and Gobi etc. we decided to have some lemon soda to help digest the heavy meal. After we ordered the lime soda, we noticed that the person making the lemon soda tasted it from each glass to make sure the amount of salt and sugar added was correct. Sometimes a glass was tasted more than once. We like lord Rama, did not create a fuss for this dirty behaviour, as devotion is more important than material items.

When desert meets the Sea

Mui Ne is a place where the desert meets the sea. There is a place in India too, (Narayan Sarovar) where the desert meets the sea. Mui Ne is similar. Just that there is a gap of about 2km b/w the desert and the sea. We went to the desert close by our resort. It had red sand dunes. It was a nice place to play. Desert has this unique terrain where you can fall and play not hurting yourself. The sand that sticks to you can be easily dusted off too. We did a group slide on the sand dunes which was fun too.

Night is still young

After all the playing on the beach and pool in the morning and on the desert in the evening, some of us were super tired. A few wanted to end the day on a high. They ended the day in a dance pub getting high dancing and drinking Vietnamese cocktails. I had retreated to the resort and got a good Vietnamese massage done, which relieved me of all the body pain and relaxed every muscle of my body.

Tomorrow will be our last day in Vietnam. We kept all alarms to wake us up early at 4:30AM to go and see the sunrise.